Uh, make yourself comfy

Very unladylike!

Why it is so hard to get work done at my desk

Er...could you move a little? I can't quite see my notes.

Houseguest

While Mom and Dad Provost are visiting Grandma and Grandad, Jay and I are taking care of one of their cats. Meet Beezie:
Beezie has a thyroid problem, and she eats and eats and eats but never feels full. Somehow, she's also thin as a rail. She needs medicine twice a day, which is why she's currently situated in our spare room. And because she's hungry all the time, she meows. And meows. And meows some more. Every time she hears me in the kitchen, she meows. When I'm in bed, I occasionally hear a yowling to beat all other yowling. If I say, "hi, Beezie," from another room, she answers with a barrage of meows.

I feel bad that the poor cat is locked in a room by herself all day, but the two-cat one-Sarah issue is a problem. The cats hiss and spit whenever they meet, so we can't let Beezie out (plus she'd probably eat everything in sight). When I sit with Beezie, Dinah gets intense pangs of jealousy and scratches at the door and squeaks her pathetic little meow (we were originally hoping that Beezie would teach Dinah proper meowing, but now I'm not so sure that would be a good thing).

Dinah is simultaneously terrified and intrigued by Beezie. She parks herself outside the door and stares at it:
Sorry Beezie! I know Dinah looks like a delicious mouthful, but you can't have her!

The Elegant Universe

Sometimes the internet leads you to weird places. Last weekend I was taking a short break from dissertation writing when I found a video that explained the tenth dimension. Intrigued, I googled for more information, and my searching led me to Nova, one of my favorite programs. Now, I usually willfully ignore science and math. I like Nova for the adventure programs. They've done several programs each on Everest and Denali. But this Nova program was different. First of all, it was long--three hours. Secondly, it was on physics. Physics?? I dumped science in high school before I got to physics, and I never felt even the smallest pang of regret. And now, ten years later, I'm watching a program on physics.

Anyway, the program was called The Elegant Universe. Starting way back with Isaac Newton, it detailed the search for a "theory of everything," which naturally led to eleven dimensions, complete with parallel universes and time travel. This theory of everything is called "string theory," or "M-theory," the M standing for many things, one of which being "meaningless."

It was confusing, since, as I've noted, I ran screaming from science and math when I was 17. It boggles my mind a little bit that someone can do a bunch of math and come to the conclusion that "Ah! This means there are jillions of parallel universes, all just a hop, skip, and a dimension away!" But it was strangely fascinating. The program originated from a book with the same title, which I've checked out from the library. Either I'll read it, become obsessed, and decide that I need to become a string theorist, or forget about it after one chapter and never read another page about string theory again. Jay is probably banking on the latter, as I don't think he's prepared to support me through another 11 years of college.

Here is the program, all of it viewable in 6-8 minute chunks, perfect for a little break after writing a page of a dissertation. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/

And here is someone else who also enjoys string: