The First Of Several - Biographical Sketches Of My Friends

"I'd eat the corn outta her shit."
- Dorian, one of my favorite people.

Completely inappropriate at times, and yet still a total ladies man.

"Dude, quit the facade, we all know you're only into the poop for the corn. They sell it on the cob, too, you know. I had to learn that the hard way..."

- Claire, another favorite person

Flowchart To My Heart (and other bits)

*Click for larger image*

I have this tendency to make charts and graphs and rubrics and the like, in an effort to prioritize what’s important to me – including the stuff of love and relationships.  My logic is twofold:  1) How are you supposed to find what you want if you can’t articulate it?  And 2) When entering semi-uncharted territory, scientific analysis is invaluable.

Imagine my excitement when I found out that OkCupid had a "Flowchart To My Heart" application.   Basically you answer a bunch of questions and then it randomly generates a flowchart that someone can look at and immediately decipher if you'd go on a date with them or not.  I thought it was a cute idea, but unfortunately the flowchart has some fatal errors in its presentation.  I found that certain questions needed higher priority than others, and also that for some questions, giving the wrong answer would be an immediate deal breaker in real life.  Furthermore, not all the questions they asked were relevant to a "dating" relationship.  For instance, I probably wouldn't marry someone who was kindof useless around the house or who didn't make smart decisions about their money, but I might still date them.

So I made my own flowchart that looks and reads exactly how it should!  It’s so tempting to make this sort of thing because I’m obsessed with relationships being about compatibility.  I fit your flowchart, you fit mine.

Sometimes though, I think maybe I’m being silly trying to engineer all this and wanting/expecting things to match perfectly.  There’s no magic in that.  Maybe love should be about finding sparks and chasing them.

I guess I’ll figure it all out soon enough.  (maybe)

On a related note, my dad says it's foolish to be so concerned with a potential mate's political inclination - libertarian or otherwise.  But I think someone's political opinions can be indicative of many other things about their personality.  Plus everyone knows that men who subscribe to the Austrian school of economics are better in bed.  It's just true!

Mmmmmmm... I love John Muir. :D :D :D

"..One learns that the world, though made, is yet being made, That this is still the morning of creation. That mountains, long concieved, are now being born, brought to life by the glaciers, channels traced for rivers, basins hollowed for lakes. That moraine soil is being ground and outspread for coming plants...while the finest part of the grist, seen hastening far out to sea, is being stored away in the darkness, and builded, particle on particle, cementing and crystallizing to make the mountains and valleys and plains of other landscapes, which, like fluent pulsing water, rise and fall, and pass through the ages in endless rhythm and beauty."

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while care will drop off like Autumn leaves."

"This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn, and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn as the round Earth rolls."

"When I first caught sight of it over the braided folds of the Sacramento Valley I was fifty miles away and afoot, alone and weary. Yet all my blood turned to wine, and I have not been weary since."

"I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. "

"The mountains are calling and I must go."

"I used to envy the father of our race, dwelling as he did in contact with the new-made fields and plants of Eden; but I do so no more, because I have discovered that I also live in "creation's dawn." The morning stars still sing together, and the world, not yet half made, becomes more beautiful every day."

"None of Nature's landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild."

"I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in."