Thank you Mr. Mulder

 So for my first post of the New Year (yay! 7 years!) I thought I start with what I hope is a series of me writing down my thoughts about people who did simple things for me that had a large impact on me. Hopefully as a reminder to myself and others to be mindful of our interactions with others.


So I sat down last week and tried to remember what I actually LEARNED in school that I still use today.

I already knew that I had wasted a lot of my youth sitting in classrooms being taught stuff I had learned from watching PBS when I was 5, but I had never really thought about it deeply. Well, I finally have.

First off, I went to public school in Southern California during the 90s. I went to average to above average schools that were not over crowded or what we would call underfunded today. I Graduated HS just as the crowding and cuts were becoming a thing,


After some soul searching... I figured out that after about 6-7th grade I can't remember a single thing that was explicitly TAUGHT to us in class that I use today.

I'm not saying I didn't learn anything new after 7th grade. You pick up things just from exisiting. Tv, social interactions, falling down, etc. I still learned stuff.

 I'm saying that as far as curriculum, I didn't learn anything useful to me as an adult after about the age 11 from my teachers or school directly.

I'll preface this by saying I was in advanced math for my age, I was taking algebra courses at this stage.  Ironically, most of the math I do is making change in my head and figuring out tips. I was never taught how to count back change and just figured it out on my own. I learned percentages in 6th grade.


 It is borderline criminal that I basically I could have dropped out in 7th grade and not wasted the next 5 years getting picked on, drawing dragons in my notebook and reading fantasy novels.

Literally every memory I have of being in class in HS is me drawing dragons in my notebook and trying to look invisible. I'm not kidding. I would try to pay attention, become extremely bored and then check out. I was still acing tests. My grades didn't start slipping until things at home got bad coupled with me ditching school all the time because I was SO EFFING BORED.

So this is the last useful thing a teacher taught me and I loved him for it.


In 6th or 7th grade in math class we built this huge Icosahedron (think like a D&D dice but with more sides) out of PVC pipes and rope. My math teacher who was an amazing guy, taught us the difference between granny and square knots, so that the structure wouldn't fall apart when we were building it.

 I remember being struck with OMG THIS IS SO FUCKING USEFUL when he explained it....It was like a religious moment.. and thinking to myself  I WILL USE THIS FOREVER THANK YOU.  I remember being so happy, like euphoric. This alone tells me that perhaps I was already not getting a lot of new knowledge at this age but wasn't so bored that I remember it explicitly.

So I did remember it.

 I still use it.

A lot.

 Forever maybe.

Thank you.

MOAR.

A year ago yesterday. Chili and Escher hanging out

But first. ..let me take a selfie. #selfie #rescue #chihuahua #mutt

A photo posted by Crystal and Chili (@criosphynx) on May 27, 2014 at 10:01pm PDT

Chili has so few friends, but I think thats ok. Hes an introvert

Tongue out.  #rescue #chihuahua #dogs

A photo posted by Crystal and Chili (@criosphynx) on Apr 14, 2014 at 8:08am PDT

mOaR Escher





much yay.

Prosopagnosia...

its whats for dinner!


Seriously though, tonight I wanted to talk about Prosopagnosia aka "face blindness".

Face blindness is essentially the inability to recognize people from just their face. There are different nuances to the condition that I wont get into, but I will start off by stating it effects people differently. Some people can't even recognize their own family, at all. Without a contextual cue. For example a man can come home and know the woman in the house is likely his wife, and act accordingly. Yet if she surprised him in the grocery store he'd have no clue who she was unless he recognized her outfit. This is because theres no context to cue him as to who she is. Without context she could be his mail lady for all he knows.

I'm no where near that severe. However there is a noticeable deficit now that I deal with reasonable amounts of people on a daily basis. I really can't think of any instance of this happening in childhood or even early adulthood, but I don't doubt it existed. I've never had large circles of people around me and my contexts were pretty limited, so there really weren't any situations to bring it to my attention. No proverbial wife to surprise me at the grocery store.

Today I had a client in class. This is one of my regulars and I noticed she didn't bring her husband like she normally does. When he arrived later during class, he hung back for a while watching. I always like to play the game in my head of "who does the guy belong to" and see if I can correctly guess who's husband had showed up. To my startle (or rather not) he belonged to my regular client.

This wouldn't be profound except I've met the guy probably about 15 times now. I've had conversations with this couple. At length. But without him being next to her for context, I would have sworn I'd never laid eyes on him.

This is just one of countless examples I could bring up. Sometimes people arrive and I recognize the dog and not the owner. AT ALL. These are people I've spent time with. One time I had two owners reversed in my mind. Like they had swapped dogs. I'd even fudged the dog context. Instead their body type PLUS the dog was the context and when two people with the same body types showed up at the same time, my brain found them interchangeable.

I have a theory however.

Face blindness is pretty much considered either Brain damage or hereditary. I know I was never dropped and I already know there's some odd genes present in me so we'll run with that a bit. The thought with it being hereditary is there is an actual physiological difference causing the impairment.

I hate the word impairment. Firstly.

here's the slippery slope. I CAN remember faces if I want to. If you asked me to remember a persons face I CAN do it. More and more I am reminding myself to do so, for careers sake. This would suggest the ability is in fact intact but my brain is just not running the program automatically.

Also I remember some people automatically and others my brain simply skips over. Its picking and chosing  which faces are important to attend to, and thus, who it can remember at a later date. I can pass all the celebrity face blindness tests I should add.

So I took this one. Without famous faces.

http://www.faceblind.org/facetests/index.php

Overall I scored decent. 85% was my lowest score, and on one of the tests I got 100%. So what the heck gives?

I got bored.
 

During the test I had to force myself to focus on the faces. Focusing on a task is what I do best. I am the exact opposite of ADD. I tend to be understimulated.  I can handle and process a very large (non social) information load. In fact I'd say I can handle pretty large social loads as well as long as its not direct interaction (for example, noisy crowds don't bother me) I also pick up on details others do not. Pretty much I'm an info junky in every sense of the word and if the environment isn't stimulating enough I get very bored. ( aka most of my childhood) In this case I found my eyes kept leaving the screen and my mind would wander in the middle of it. It was so unlike me that I was pretty startled. I am the test taker, the task doer, the finish things quick and now. I'm not the kind of person to wander off mentally in the middle of something.

Yet, as I suspected, this is what my mind does when confronted with human faces. It wanted nothing to do with the task at hand. I could feel my mind saying "c'mon theres gotta be other stimuli here thats way more important". And when I ignored its whining, it tried to leave the room anyway.

 I remembered the asymmetrical eyes and the odd teeth easily and struggled with the rest. Pretty much my brain is an information junky and unless I find something entertaining, odd, or distinctly memorable, my mind decides its uniportant and that the texture of the carpet is more interesting. Basically, my brain decides that recognizing and remembering faces is not important and instead attends to the other cues as to who the person is.

This makes me wonder how much of the typical eye contact issues are less about being uncomfortable and more about our brains saying its an unimportant behavior . Then as you age, society demands it and you feel awkward about it because it wasn't ingrained as a child. Your brain sees it as an "expensive"  behavior and not worth the calories it burns. After all, people aren't the most interesting thing in the room, most of the time.

 I will also note that while I have no issues with giving or receiving eye contact typically, I find if I'm tired, overstimulated or lazy that day, or don't find that person important (like someone bothering me), I'll fall into not looking at people, like a habit. I'm not uncomfortable with it, its just too much effort for no real benefit to me as far as information gathering if I'm conserving energy. When taxed I'll spend my calories on other things that will reap more benefits. You aren't thinking about digestion when your running from a lion.

So pretty much my physiology is saying; Social interactions are not important unless its someone you find interesting. This seems to match up with my behavior in other, more tangible realms.

Fascinating, but nonetheless, it basically means that if I recognize you at the grocery store, your in a good place in my mind :)

Chicken Hickeys

 

“ An inefficient virus kills its host. A clever virus stays with it. ”   James Lovelock

An inefficient virus kills its host. A clever virus stays with it.
James Lovelock
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/virus.html#rhDztREt7sHsuDaR.99

My Chicken Hickey has returned.

For the third time in my life now, I've had a shingles outbreak. For those who don't know what that means, basically when you get chicken pox as a kid your immune system defeats it in most places. Occasionally, they miss a spot or two and the virus goes dormant. These dormant places are next to nerves.

When you are stressed, the virus (known as zoster) sees your immune system is taxed and it wakes back up, angering the nerve and causing stripey lesions on your skin, oddly on only one side of the body. Its the same virus as chicken pox, from your initial infection as a child, but it behaves very differently and takes weeks to go away again. Unlike chicken pox, which resolves in under a week.

Some people are lucky enough to get it on their chest or even their arms. The really fucked people get it on their face and around their eyes.  Mine appears on my neck in true moderately fucked fashion. Not the best place, but at least I can still see.

It fools you by acting like its a zit. You try to pop it, nothing comes out. You think, wow thats odd.  It then gets angry and red. You think, wow I must have pissed that zit off by trying to pop it too soon. My bad Mr. Zit, I'll let to your brew a little longer, no need to get so angry. When the redness doesn't go down, you think wow my neck skin sure is sensitive. You put neosporin on it and go to bed thinking it will be gone in the morning. Wake up, its still there but theres obviously nothing in it. Shit. Ok more neosporin and vow not to touch it or pick at it that day. Wake up on day three. Its bigger. You put some make up over it and think what. the. hell It's a good thing I'm not dating.  Day four rolls by and its now long and red and really raised. Its brought a friend with it today. The friend is a red flag. You finally remember, oh yeah I'm carrying Zoster. Wee fucking wee. I can stop saying wow now.

Then the bastard starts to itch. If  you are really lucky, it will give you horrendous nerve pain in your jaw and teeth like it did the second time I had it. You can't scratch it, cause well, its your fucking neck and the skin there is like rice paper and we aren't trying to make the spot bigger by raking our flesh off.

The best you can do is stand in the shower with your neck up to the nozzle and let 130deg water hit it for an hour to kill the itch. How do kids do this chicken pox shit?? I can't imagine my whole body feeling like that. I can however, remember my mother screaming at me frantically to stop scratching while my sister and I sat in the bathtub. Hey sis,  you know how you say you're too young to remember all the fun stuff we did together as kids? Well thats the kind of things you missed.


Far worse things are to come however. See, the first few days the thing looks like a zit. Hell it even fools me at first as I just illustrated. The subsequent days it looks like a bad evil zit to the general public. The kind people will notice and feel sorry for you, but not say anything about. Or maybe they think you picked at it like some meth addict. Who knows. The point is they try to ignore it.  After all acne is sad, and you are to be pitied at this point..

Thing is when we hit about 7 days in, it will look like a hickey. I'll know when I've arrived at that point because the comments will start. Generally they are people I know or kinda know and they get a free science lession about the life cycle of chicken pox. But the bad comments always come from people I don't know...

 The first time I had shingles. I was a cashier at Petsmart. I helped hundreds of people a day and the looks I was getting were quite spectacular. I was about 20 years old, pretty, and in a menial job so it was plausible that I'd come to work like that. This guy made a joke about my hickey and what a fun night I must have had. (which is ironic because I'm pretty certain the volatile relationship with my then boyfriend is what triggered it) Har har. I told him it wasn't a hickey it was just acne from hell. (I didn't know at the time what shingles was and still had bad skin back then). He laughed and basically called me a liar. I insisted. He laughed harder. I insisted again. He laughed.


There's no real moral to that story except that some guys are jerks who will laugh at you.

The second time I had shingles, It was just after my split from Kev and my stress levels from moving repeatedly and dealing with a freaked out diarhea dog and a screaming-destroy-the-carpet-lost-your-deposit-cat were sky high.  Thus It got much larger and eventually looked like a bonafide "rash" and only one person commented on it, and not to my face. This time I was preemptive however and told everyone that I had a thing. It was going to grow. It wasn't contagious, and no I didn't make out with an overzealous teenager.  He was able to explain on my behalf to the commenter.

This time remains to be seen. I take peace in the fact that its really uncommon to have this more than three times tops. But then again it was uncommon for me to have it as a young adult anyway, so perhaps I'm just a freak of nature.

 Either way, I like talking about my odd bits, chronic dormant viruses and all.

But if I have to defend myself as "not having a hickey" at 31 years old. I may have to smack a' bitch. Or at least rub my neck on them.

That is all.

Defacing Government Property...

Taken to a whole new level.

Katie did it.

 

One of the most interesting things about starting a new garden in a new area is seeing all the new wildlife that arrives. I don't mean birds and squirrels, but the insects. I enjoy new species of plants and bugs the same as I would seeing a new species of bird or mammal. Some may find this odd, but in my opinion, it makes my life more interesting, because I can enjoy all of nature, not just the cute and fluffy things.

When you first start a new garden, its pretty sterile. Nothing really visits it, especially if your neighborhood is bland as far as biodiversity. Most people keep ornamental plants that are over bred, and then spray them with chemicals, because god forbid they have to look at a spider once in a while.

After the "sterile" period, the "pest" period begins. This is when the news gets out that you have opened the salad bar, and they appear in droves in the tenor of Homestyle Buffet. Typically the aphids appear first, and they did in fact, but I hadn't planted anything weak and sissified (aka roses and hibiscus)  so they came and went very fast and didn't do any damage. The locusts have also come and gone for the most part. Those that stick around are great Chili toys, being both fast and tasty. Or so he lets on.

July has been the month of the katydid, with more than I've ever seen in my entire life, including this big guy. Who was stuck to the window screen by a leg, necessitating I rescue him. He thanked me by pausing to clean his antennae while he sat on my hand, and allowing me to watch him do so.

The real interesting ones were these awesome green horned caterpillars that appeared in decent numbers on my red Guara plant. There were four big ones today but one was not very gentlemanly and didn't want to be picked up. So he kept vomiting his dinner on me to make me go away.  Like any bad romance his tactic eventually worked so I had only these three guys to hang out with:

The Three (non vomit-y) Caballeros

I liked the variation in pattern. They were hard to photograph because they wouldn't sit still. A little googling tells me they are the larva of the Spinx moth, likely Hyles lineata the white lined sphinx moth. It's a huge moth that can hover like a hummingbird. I've seen them a couple times, and their size is a bit intimidating. I'd like to see one again, and they pollinate some uber rare native California plant, so I'll be letting these green dudes live.

They seem tame and docile until you get them too close to each other. When personal space disapears, they do like any civilized society would naturally do and try to beat each other up, using their heads like hammers and biting the invader on the back.

I kick your ass yo.

 So all in all, a nice, bug boxing filled evening.

Skateboarding Mexican

I attempted to teach Chili the skateboard about 6 months ago but his fear of it outweighed anything I could offer him.

He learned what I wanted but was too frightened to stick with it. So I put it away for half a year and brought it back out on friday.

I think he just gave fear the middle finger...

Rivendell...

Turned Fabuland Gazebo


Frodo would be proud. Maybe

50,000 insects...

and a chihuahua.

I found this on my pants

Far from its home. Now I see how settlers spread pests...


Inch along. Little friend. Far and wide, on my thigh.

Screw elves...

The mythical forest should be populated by a race of bearded dragons in flower hats. At least thats my take on it.

Fish heads, fish heads...

Rolly-polly fish heads.


I think the bait fish get overlooked to often as food.

Better than tuna. Imo anyway.

Job Opening; Must enjoy Feces.

There is a joke I always make, well not really a joke, more of a truth I poke fun at on a regular basis.. Whenever people apply to any animal related job they always put "I love animals" on the application. Som' girls even get cutesy and put little hearts. This is followed generally with a list of their pets, I suppose to really prove that they "love animals"

The longer the list, the more they seem to think this proves they "love animals". The person reading the application may even be duped into this. WOW this person is perfect! They really LOVE animals, look they have 50 of them!

Its at this point I want to remove my ears. Generally with plastic spoons. Your application is gagworthy, and let me tell you why.

Firstly, if you're putting "I love animals" on an application to a petstore. You are an unoriginal idiot. At petsmart we would have STACKS of applications, all staying the same thing in that same space. I LUVZ DEMS. Way to stand out of the crowd. We'd actually pull the two or three out of the stacks of hundreds that said som'thing different and call those people, no matter how crap the rest of the ap was.

Its also a pretty obvious statement isn't it? If you were applying for a mechanic position, would you put "I LOVE CARS"? Or at a grocery store "OMG I JUST LUVS FUD"

Sounds moronic now right?


Secondly, here is what I hear when I hear (lol) "I love animals"


"I HATE PEOPLE ".


Or...

"Im socially retarded and can't make friends so I have pets instead"


keep in mind, both these things are valid life choices. I used to describe myself as "hating people" at various crossroads. But here's the thing, tell me you hate people on an application for retail I get images of conversations gone awry and me having to babysit you. I'm not maternal. I barely want to train you and explain where the bathroom is. I don't want to have to re-raise you and teach you how to talk to and/or be polite to people. Teaching you to interact with humans was your parents job, and if they failed, guess what? You're an adult now and its your responsibility. Congrats.

I don't want to have to save you from pushy or irrate customers because you have no backbone because the only real world convos you have had are with fluffy and whiskers. I was socially retarded at one point too, but I fixed it. You should get on that.

In short, you are either rude or a doormat, most likely.


The other thing that statement doesn't tell me, is how you feel about feces, blood, death, bedding, food for the animals etc. Petsmart would actually hire people who "loved animals" but were too squeemish to clean up after them. Or too lazy. These questions were conveniently left out at interview time, probably because the moron manager "loves animals" just as much as you do.

Another note is, as it turns out "I LOVE ANIMALS" 99% of the time is a conditional statement. Oh why o' why must you all lie to me? Conditional As in "I love the furry animals" Or I love snakes, but not frogs" or "I love the animals that are friendly but the aggressive ones leave me wimpering" etc etc.

 I'm sorry, to me "I love animals" means, I love all animals with either no or very rare exception. If you can't pick up a roach, or restrain a guinea pig, I have news for you Steve Irwin, you should be working the register.


So in closing, next time you see that space that says "why do you want to work here" say som'thing about your work ethic. Your punctuality. Your ability to get along with coworkers etc.

Or be humorous and just flat out say you like cleaning feces, being bitten, and dealing with ignorant people all day for a living. Because honestly, thats the job you're really applying for. ;)