SELECTED SHORTS

There’s a lot of miscellaneous stuff wandering around my virtual desktop, so I’ll just post it and get it out of the way even though none of them has quite fermented/gestated into a complete posting.

I read quite a bit about brain research and the genome, partly because I have so many family members with brain damage (husband, brother, cousin, father) and other relatives struggling with problems that may have genetic roots.

This below comes from a blog called “Gene Expression” and a regular poster called “Coffee Mug.” The photo won’t travel, given my technical skill, but it’s at:
(http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2006/11/place-and-plasticity-two-views-on.php) The piece is about the hippocampus and the photo shows a seahorse alongside a real dissected hippocampus from a brain -- the resemblance is very clear. Below is the concluding paragraph of the piece:

“Exploration of the hippocampus' abilities continues. I have not scratched the surface even in this mega-post. The theories of the hippocampus as a memory storage device and a cognitive map are not mutually exclusive and may turn out to be one and the same. I came to an interest in the hippocampus via a more philosophical route: considering the role of memory in the definition of the self and such, but there are plenty of noble non-navel-gazing reasons to delve deep into this structure as well. The hippocampus shows signs of damage and deterioration early on in Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia, and the same recurrent excitatory connectivity so useful for memory storage may also provide the substrate for the electrical storms underlying epilepsy. I hope you now have some more of the conceptual framework necessary for reading and evaluating new hippocampus articles, and we can talk about it some more when good studies come out. Now make like a hippocampectomized rat and get lost!”

I’m also coming at an interest in the hippocampus through the issue of identity, but in two ways. First, the identities of these close and loved people changed subtly but so definitely that it was impossible to continue in relationship with them. Was this a failure of faithfulness? (In sickness or in health...) If another person is unrecognizable in terms of responses, even though they smell, taste, feel the same, are they even the same person?

Second, for a long time my rule has been to turn all questions of others onto myself. When I was a child and made declarations, people would say, “Oh, you’ll change. You’ll grow out of that.” So I have been determined to stay the same -- but how do I remember who I was? Aren’t I as likely as the next person to “forget” what’s inconvenient ? This is one of the appeals and uses of writing for me -- write down the evidence, then go back later to check the record.

The hippocampus also has a lot to do with the sorting and reassorting of memories done during sleep, probably causing dreams. Towards morning when I get a little chilled and rise through sleep enough to remember dreams, I often have what I call “snow dreams.” This morning I had the electric mattress warmer turned up high -- high enough that the cat left -- and instead of the usual dream about being at an insufficiently heated conference center, I dreamt about being in a room with a fireplace -- wonderful polished wood mantel filled with weathered discarded boards that were only burning in the middle. I think it had something to do with finding the website of Daniel Harper (www.danielharper.org) who is a UU minister in New Bedford. (Remember the Curtis Room, Dan?) I was reading about various UU issues and about Meadville/Lombard which is up to its usual tricks. So now, which is UUism -- the mantel or the burning wood?

Since Darrell told me about his Blackfeet Uncle (sort of like a Dutch Uncle, maybe), I’ve been making up pithy bits of advice to tell a young ‘un. Like: “If your pickup breaks down on the way home from Great Falls with the groceries in the back, eat the ice cream but don’t open the beer.” I was still in this mood when I got to Pro-Lube in Great Falls yesterday. They always want to vacuum the inside of the cab and I don’t want them to, but the Montana ethic is to always keep your pickup Very Clean. (The carwash in Valier is exempted from the ban on using water frivolously.) In the past I’ve asked them not to vacuum and they just did it anyway. So this time I told the young man, “Listen, I’m a drug dealer and I don’t want you to vacuum in my cab because the marijuana seeds collect on the floor and when I really need the money, I gather them up and sell them.” He laughed, looked at me sideways, and when he thought I wasn’t looking he checked the floor -- but he did NOT vacuum it! Do people trust illegal people to be more honest?

Yesterday the November winds were really ripping and the sky was torn in every direction. Great gray blankets of wooly clouds were hanging low and out to the horizon, but they were ripped and rolled, tumbled and twitched, so that bright blue sky shone through and sometimes there were even sudden bursts of white light. The ground has no snow again, which is why the clouds are dark underneath, and the Rockies are only patched with white. The windmills by Great Falls were turning in sync when I went by. They don’t strike me as ugly. They’re white and oddly sedate.

I suppose the day of an election ought to be breathless, held in suspense, but maybe this wild tumult is more appropriate to these times and our national predicaments. I had to leave several positions on my ballot empty since there were NO people I could vote for. I joked that it would save energy if I just had one big vote: “All incumbents out.” For weeks pollsters have been calling me and I’ve hung up without speaking. Now they’re having their revenge. Every time I settle down for a nap or a good long read, they call me and there’s no one on the line.

Daniel Harper and my new friend Sharon (SBpoet.com) are both participating in NaNoWriMo. Sharon took photos of the group that gathered to write their novels together (possibly at the Leaf & Bean in Missoula or is it Butterfly Something?). All sweet chix, sitting there with thousand dollar laptops in front of them (plus caffeinated beverages), and I’ll bet you ten dollars they were all writing about love. Riding, writing, those hippocampi through the sea of memory. Mermaids.