the habit of being

Static or stagnant, I am cut off, decidedly, and rather absent is the part of my mind that drives me to create beauty. Instead there is this terrible yearning, and I can think of nothing but fairy tales, stories I found in the eyes of a man, the hair of a princess, all in the past. Tell me what beauty is, I know you know, I think I may have taught you myself, before I slipped off track. I sit on my bed, wrapped in a pink towel, my legs under the bottom sheet, and wait. I sleep days through.

stale soup (tapestry of late January through today, I’m afriad):

Fungal life cycles vary by division, but generally start with haploid mycelia. Early reproduction is usually asexual and later reproduction is sexual. The sexual cycle involves cell fusion (plasmogamy) and nuclear fusion (karyogamy), with an intervening dikaryotic stage (2 haploid nuclei). The diploid stage is short-lived and rapidly undergoes meiosis to produce haploid spores.

It seems that Tolstoy’s novel (A. Karenina) has simply been sitting around on some bookshelf all these years waiting for me to read it, just as Jennifer must have been created for the sole purpose of being my friend and teaching me things. It is perfectly lovely, I pronounce emphatically to all my peers. I feel like a child who has just been given a new toy. It is not just any toy; it’s certainly not a plastic Happy Meal toy. This novel, the “it cannot get better” version, is the doll that blinks her eyes, drinks her milk, and sings a favorite lullaby, all while whispering the meaning of life under her breath.

My name is Katharine and I am many things - sensitive, pretentious, aggressive, sweet, quaint, sensual, and alive, among others. My name is Katharine and this is the best I can do this time.

There are three plant divisions of bryophtes: Bryophyta (mosses), Hepatophyta (liverworts), and Anthocerophyta (hornworts). They have wazy cuticles and gametangia (male gametangium = antheridium, female = archegonium) that protect the gametes and embryo on land, but still require a moist habitat for fertilization and imbibing of water in the absense of vascular tissue.

Where we are today in relation to the human genome is analogous to where we were immediately following the completion of the Lewis and Clark expedition (in terms of land exploration). We�ve got a good idea what�s out there, but we�ve barely begun to utilize that knowledge.

Levin grips his scythe and mows his wheat, absorbing himself fully in the movement of his arms, the motion of his tool, and the very tangibility of all that he is doing. One sometimes wonders if, in leading a scholarly life, over ever really acheives anything. What are words and thoughts, which cannot be touched, when compared with a freshly mowed field, the benefits of which can be quickly listed out and logically explained? (By “one,” I mean myself, of course). It is a hard reality to face, this notion that perhaps ignorance really is bliss, that the more naive a person is, in the intellectual sense of the word, the happier that person is. I (one person) too, need simplicity, serenity, and so I sit in my art classes at school attempting to make Japanese scrolls with trees, gondolas, and lots of negative space, as a means to that end. I meditate. I sit still. Yet, perhaps what I really need is a good scythe and some friendly peasants to teach me how to use it.

When and if we do clone a human, who will set the guidelines? Because all these issues are relatively new, there are no established laws saying what is and isn�t acceptable. (Bio-ethics is the field to be in for students who want to write philosophy themselves instead of just digesting things written ages ago.) The Founding Fathers certainly never envisioned any of this genetic debate when they wrote the Constitution. We�re going to need people who understand genetic engineering to make the laws that govern its uses. Due to the increasing presence of genetic issues in the lives of people who know nothing about the techniques involved in genetic engineering and may not even know the basic laws of heredity, there will be a need for writers, politicians, and lawyers who can bridge the gap between the research world and society at large.

Is it not true that in any activity, from the intensely physical to the intensely artistic, those very moments occur in which a force outside the self seems to take over and everything comes together in perfect harmony? I’ve often felt, in playing my flute with the Wind Ensemble, that the moments during which I am most immersed in the music, most satisfied with my performance, are times when I cease to be Katharine playing her part on her instrument and become instead only a small part in a much greater whole. The music comes of itself from this group of which I am a member, while I do nothing but move my fingers on the keys of my instrument and let my eyes travel across the staff from one black note the next. It is only in those times that music really seems to make sense.

There are four divisions of gymnosperms (plants which have seeds, but not ovaries), three of which are very small (Cycadophyta, Ginkophyta, and Gnetophyta - see fig 27.16) and one of which is not (Coniferophyta). Conifers are plants with cones as reporductive structures, and include pines, firs, spruce, cedars, and cypresses. They are evergreens with needle-shaped leaves adapted to dry conditions. Conifers are heterosporous; male and female gametophytes develop from different types of spores produced on different cones. See Life Cycle of a Pine (Fig 27.17 p. 563).

Some of the best writing I’ve ever produced has come during moments of half-consciousness. Often I will find old pieces and have not the slightest idea when or how they came to be written.

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This is not one of those moments. This is not one of those moments. This is not one of those moments. I am lost. All flow is gone. I suppose this is honesty