Emotional Intimacy Question: Aging

Folks have mentioned an interest in questions and conversations that make them think. So I've decided to offer more of those. I'm starting with this list.

6. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?

Honestly, either one without the other would be of little use to me.  

Art

 Horse holding key.

African Research

This article talks about biases against research from Africa. I would certainly expect such biases, since so many people are racist, classist, or otherwise prejudiced. The article raises a variety of interesting points ...

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Hunting and Evolution

Sweden forbids hunting of mother bears with cubs.  Probably as a result of this, mother bears are raising their cubs an extra year. 

Anxiety Scale

moonvoice has created an Anxiety Scale to gauge the amount and effects of nervousness that a person feels.  It works similar to pain scales that describe shifting levels of impairment as the problem worsens.  Note that some level of anxiety is healthy, as it discourages people from doing foolish and dangerous things.  If you or people you know are suffering from anxiety strong enough to undermine everyday life, this tool may help you measure it, and that information improves the chance of finding solutions.

Asexuals Writing Asexuals

Here's a thoughtful article about asexual writers portraying asexual characters. Some thoughts ...

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African Grains

Africa has dozens of native grains and cultivars derived from them which differ from European or American ones.  These have been staples in the past, and some still are.  They just don't get as much attention as the more famous types.  But in the face of climate change, they offer great promise because they thrive and produce food from poor dry soils -- whereas the more popular types require much better conditions.

Of these, I've only had the chance to try tef in the form of injera.  It is quite tasty, and was worth spending an afternoon tearing through every cookbook in the house because I had once seen a recipe in one of them "somewhere" and a friend had obtained some tef he wanted to cook up.  I have since had it in restaurants a time or two.  If you like the robust, tangy flavor of sourdough or other fermented breads, you will probably like the tangy taste of injera too.

Today's Adventures

We drove a couple hours out to Springfield today, as an early birthday trip for me.  On the road, we saw a round barn under construction.  That's an old style, so I'm pleased to see someone continuing it.

We started at White Oaks Mall.  While the physical layout is poorly designed in various ways -- including insufficient bathrooms, an "accessible" lower sink with no kneespace, and several restaurants facing only outwards -- the complement of stores is quite charming.  We ate lunch at Five Guys, which makes delicious hamburgers; I had mine with grilled mushrooms.  Later we got pretzel bites with cream cheese.  The mall had several galleries displaying work by many local artists.  That's typical of Terramagne-America, where malls often have a shop for local crafters.  I never did find something there that was the right combination of appealing imagery, decent price, and somewhere to put it but I greatly enjoyed browsing them.  At another store, I found several boxes of incense, along with a Celtic knotwork shirt for Doug at a very nice price for something so lavishly decorated.  The coolest thing I saw, which I did not get for lack of anywhere to put it, was a splendid rainbow rug.  Another convenience was having markers on the floor by the entrances that showed the length of various routes for a mall walkers club; it's nice to see somewhere supporting that.

After the mall, we went to Humphrey's Market, which has a meat counter with exotic meats.  We picked up a pound of ground elk to make an elkloaf, which was one of the things I hoped to find; and a pound of applewood-smoked duck bacon, which I did not even know of before I saw it, but sounds very exciting.  I really look forward to cooking these up later.

Poetry Fishbowl Report for March 20, 2018

This session featured the Yellow Unicorns. I wrote from 1:30 PM to 12:45 AM, so about 9 hours 15 minutes, allowing for breaks. I wrote 13 poems, all sub-epics, so I managed to cover all the prompters on Tuesday. \o/

Participation was slow, with 14 comments on LiveJournal and 41 on Dreamwidth. A total of 12 people sent prompts.


Read Some Poetry!
The following poems from the March 20, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl have been posted:
"A Dangerous Crusade"
"The Day of the Night"
"Gryphons and Their Pearls"
"The Heart's Garden"
"Religion vs. Spirituality"


Buy some poetry!


See the unsold poems list.  Currently sponsored poems have been posted. Donors this time included redsixwing, janetmiles, and E.  


The Poetry Fishbowl project also has a permanent landing page.