Can you say, "HOODIA!"

I found this at link at Starling Fitness. Tom Mangold quotes Dr Richard Dixey as saying:

There is a part of your brain, the hypothalamus. Within that mid-brain there are nerve cells that sense glucose sugar. When you eat, blood sugar goes up because of the food, these cells start firing and now you are full. What the Hoodia seems to contain is a molecule that is about 10,000 times as active as glucose. It goes to the mid-brain and actually makes those nerve cells fire as if you were full. But you have not eaten. Nor do you want to.

Waaa! HOO! Something that effects BLOOD SUGAR?! Wow, besides being a really cool diet pill, this could possibly help with alcoholism. Some people say that the same brain chemistry that makes people sugar sensitive is the brain chemistry that leads to alchoholism. What a truly miraculous cure that would be. Maybe it could even help one of my ailments. Remember, you heard it here it here first!

Content Management!

I'm looking for new software for a non-profit org that I work with. What have I been looking for? Blog software. I just ran across this article which helps explain why I am so excited by blog software. It can be used to build an entire content management system for a website and it is so much EASIER and more elegant. I'm not even interested in Dreamweaver anymore, and not to be disloyal to Blogger, but have you ever tried out Typepad?

Blogging software really excites me. (Does this mean I have started the sacred journey toward all that is geek?)

Supersize Me

Check out my friend Andrea's post about the corporate hypocracy displayed in Supersize Me. She uses performance technology in her critique. She's good! She's so good.

Say yes! to life! :)

Hey my blogging friends,

I've had a busy week with not much time to blog. I missed two great illustration Friday themes, "reinvention" and "alone." I sketched a quick alone idea as soon as I got the theme, so I might still put it up here, and French Toast Girl did such a great rendition of "reinvention" that that word has had it's due.

In sermon news: You may have noticed a string of bad reviews for sermons on this site and I just wanted to tell you that last week's sermon was awesome. It was done by the worship committee at my church and it was the most spiritually uplifting sermon I have been at in a loooonnnngggg time. It was very ritualistic and poetic. There were drums and readings and times of stillness. It was heavy on Rumi, light on theology. When it comes to spirituality, I'm definately experiential. The main message I got out of the service was, "Say yes to life!" and the message must have filtered into my body like light filled water and woken something up. I think I have been standing on the edge of life looking in for a few years now. And this week I jumped into the stream and I vicerally felt the meaning of "go with the flow." I remember something of this feeling from an earlier time in my life when I was energetically involved in lots of activities.

This week I've noticed that a lot of good things just come to me and that what happens when I get stuck and start to feel frustrated is that I'm stopping something and digging in my heels, probably out of fear. So, I've been taking some deep breaths, relaxing and getting into the river. There's just a little shock at the beginning but it just wakes you up, it's not that bad once you get in. :)

And... da, da, da, da... I've decided to become a NIA teacher! I think practicing NIA and loosening up my body has also played a big role in me feeling more brave. So, there you have it, do a little dance, read a little Rumi, get down tonight!

ps: Just visited Ministrare and left a comment. While I disagree with Sean's views in this particular post, I loved his sermons when I went to that church.

Sometimes I draw while I'm on the phone. If I'm sitting at the computer.

What's your type? (or, Please can this be a meme!)

[Update: Hi visitors! My meme never took off, but some people are coming by to find out if their myer's briggs types are compatible with another type. Research has found that the more letters you have in common, the more likely you are to get along well in marriage. However, of course, their are good and bad marriages of any personality combinations. You also have to take character, emotional maturity, and shared goals into account. The Tiegers do extensive research about marriages between different personality types and share it in a fun to read and useful way in this facinating book. It was really fun to read about my type and my old boyfreinds' types and also about my type and my mom's type. The book was right on. Warning: other meyer's briggs type books have all different kinds of theories about who is compatible, but most are based on the author's intuition and counseling experience, not research. Now, on to the previously scheduled post...]

Imitating the Friday Five, here's what you do: Copy and paste the questions and post a link to your reply in the comments.

After reading the descriptions of the Myers Briggs types in the chart, answer the following questions as best you can. (scroll down after you click on the link to see the chart)

1. What type are you?
2. What type are you dating/married to, or would be interested in dating/marrying?
3. What type are your best friends/kindred spirits?
4. Which types are in your immediate family?
5. Which type did you most recently get in a fight with?
6. Which type did you talk to most recently?
   

My answers:

ISTJ ISFJ INFJ INTJ
ISTP ISFP INFP INTP
ESTP ESFP ENFP ENTP
ESTJ ESFJ ENFJ ENTJ

More than one color means that personality type is the answer to more than one question, and I cheated a little on the immediate family answer because I have a teeny, tiny little immediate family, so I expanded to include my uncles, aunts, and grandparents, but no kids, 'cause they are still forming.

You can answer in the usual way, or if you want to answer in graphical form, like me, you can copy and paste these letters, and color and bold as needed.

ISTJ ISFJ INFJ INTJ
ISTP ISFP INFP INTP
ESTP ESFP ENFP ENTP
ESTJ ESFJ ENFJ ENTJ

Why this meme? I love typology- ye old temperaments were my introduction, then the Colors, then, the true type love of my life Myers-Briggs, and most recently, the Enneagram. I love typing my family and think genealogical charts should have a spot for the person's type as well as more mundane things like their birth date. (Although some people think birthdate can be a type indicator..)

Blog of the Day: Dakota Feinstein

Oh, oh, I have a new blog of the day, found through the ever charming Natalie/Augustine. May I introduce to you Dakota Feinstein! She is stealthily funny, no darkly funny, no deeply funny…mmm shoot. Ok, here is an excerpt from her about page:

When I started this endeavor, I was completely anonymous, because I project shame and humiliation into every new experience, due to early trauma. Anonymity just seemed safer. After a few months, I did tell a few dear and close personal friends what I was up to. I remain anonymous because I write things here that many people would be better off not knowing, as in, you don't want to think about your parents having sex.

See what I mean. Oh, she’s funny. I think she’s the glamourous blond. Check out my new Blog of the Day (still deciding if I should change the name to Blog of the Week) Dakota Feinstein.

Catching up on some reading

I'm just a wee bit behind on my reading for school. AHHH!!! I just wanted to let you know why I might not be posting much for a few weeks. Thanks for stopping by. By the way, my mouse is on the left side of my keyboard and I started drawing with my left hand without thinking about it, then I went to switch, but decided to keep drawing with my left hand so I could finally say the famous words of Inigo Montoya.

Inigo Montoya: I admit it, you are better than I am.
Man in Black: Then why are you smiling?
Inigo Montoya: Because I know something you don't know.
Man in Black: And what is that?
Inigo Montoya: I am not left-handed!

Hmmm....

Birthday Wish

What a day. Luckily, I haven't made my birthday wish yet. I'm still deciding just what to wish for.

Illustration Friday: Travel

I went the easy route this week and played with an old image. Here's the original political post from a few months ago. I love to travel and have adventures. Yesterday was my birthday and I can picture myself on the earth travelling around the sun. I've made 31 trips now!

There is some really beautiful art work this week on Illustration Friday. I was going to post some of my favorites, but the list kept growing, so I'll leave it up to you to explore. If you find some that you really like, I'd love it if you'd come back and leave a comment with the address.

Heavy heart/light heart, a journal entry

If I was in a poem mood I'd make this post into a poem. The sentiments are more appropriate for poem form because they are from a deep felt place rather than a rational one. They are all tangled up with home, and fragile like being wanted and being loved. I'm talking about church. It IS Sunday after all! :)

We had the coolest service at church today, at first. We had a guest minister from Transylvania and he read the Lord's prayer and he sounded JUST like Dracula reading the Lord's prayer and, I'm not kidding, he was wearing a black cape! Then we had music after amazing music. At one point we were all standing, clapping and singing as a dynamite musician was pounding the piano keys and his spine tingling voice was ringing out. It was awesome. And then another guest minister with a name like Ala Tu Tu Bab Way, (whose name used to be something like Herman Jones,) started a preachin'. Boy, he was good. This man can preach. He's a Presbyterian and a definite "God" minister. He was talking about how he prays when the spirit moves in his heart and the spirit moves in his heart ALL the time! (Hallelujah!) He said God is his center and his core. I was really enjoying this service. Contrary to what some people might think from my last post about church, God-talk does not bother me. I love to hear people's stories and I am truly tolerant when it comes to people's personal religious beliefs.

But then he drew a line between the God people and the not God people, with full contempt for the people who are "just in their heads" and don't understand the deeper things about life (aka: God.) Ouch. I felt so unwelcome. Although the sermon was definitely anti-a-theistic, it wasn't as bad, in a way, as the last sermon I wrote about, because he’s not a UU minister. On the other hand, I can’t imagine our ministers asking an atheist minister to preach who would be so contemptuous of theistic beliefs. I hope they wouldn’t.

I was so sad. I told a couple friends how unwelcome the sermon made me feel and, I started to cry when I said it.

Heavy hearted,
I cry.
But first,
Sonya brought me flowers for my birthday and a scarf that whispers ”you belong, you belong…”
And when I cried,
They held me.
And the ones that didn’t hold me stood by my side
And pet my arm.
And I breathe
And I drink some water and I
Let the sadness and the not-home ness fall
(A little awkwardly)
And I put it away for now
And walk to lunch.

Light hearted,
I laugh.
And I joke with Dan
Always the straight man.
And we have a little adventure as we stop in at the open house
And I see us through the broker mans eyes:
Four laughing girls in flowers,
Light hearted
In this warm and light and spacious
(And outrageously priced)
Condo.
And we eat strawberries,
And some of us eat chocolate,
And we continue on our adventure,
Slipping out of the house, the ending of our story as mysterious as our beginning,
The only real moment
Being our brief entrance on their very real stage,
Characters in their play that day,
Lighthearted characters in their play.

And should I continue with the story about the desk? Far more real.
People hawking their wares on the sidewalk outside of their house,
Moving to Tennessee.
Darci bought an ottoman, with glee,
I bought a desk,
On our walk back to the church today,
Our light and fumbling way,
Our mysterious, real
Play (full way.)