I actually find the human body to be pretty neat. Not just to look at and draw, but actually having one. I could go on and on about its coping mechanisms and it’s near impossibility of even existing. Sure it has it’s draw backs and it doesn’t last nearly as long as I’d like. But it entertains as much as disappoints.

Like how it tells you what it wants or needs and how it deals with imbalance. Beyond pain and hunger and sneezing there is food craving and disgust. Often I will get inexplicable cravings for certain foods usually regardless of the season or the mood I’m in. And I don’t mean desire, gee-that-sounds-good, but a real need. I know it’s because I’m lacking something—when I really want spinach, I probably need iron, yogurt means calcium and/or protein and so on. But some of them will actually make me burst out laughing. Like wanting curry, first thing in the morning, three days running. Or, once when I was terribly sick with a cold, I really just had to have cured green olives.

I will also suddenly have no appetite for foods. Not that it just doesn’t sound good, but I’m actively repulsed by foods I normally like. Cheese comes and goes for me in appeal, as does sugar and butterfat combinations and tempeh. And when I’m seriously depressed, alcohol is the last thing I want. As I’m a glass of wine just about everyday kind of gal, I’m impressed with that last one.

Listening to my body tends to serve me well. Beyond diet urges, I try to eat when hungry, decline when not and remember if I’m really thirsty, go for water, not tea or coffee. that all really works best for me. And beyond the stomach I always took it to heart when a trainer I once had told me that pain is your body saying “don’t do that!” and that trying to push beyond pain is a good way to injure yourself. I also try to listen to it in other matters, except right now I’m in a tussle with it over sleep requirements.

I’m getting tired way too early and haven’t been able to get up earlier than 7:45 am—which makes it really fun to get to work on time. Now, I’m torture myself with lack of sleep as much as the next web-cartoonist, but not that much recently and nothing that explains how long this has been going on. And this is beyond the dark and the cold. Actually, the first winter I moved to Portland my internal clock was all screwed up—I wouldn’t rise before 10:00 am. Combine that with the fact that you get a late afternoon sun at 11:00 am and I was all screwed up.*

At first I indulged the sleeping—I had been sick and then exposed to many sick people. It could’ve been that my body was fighting something. But then I realized what was really the matter was that I hadn’t gotten enough, or any, exercise for the past month, due to a variety of reasons. I recommenced exercising as of yesterday and already I had no problem getting up at 7:00 am today. Funny how my body is reluctant to tell me I need exercise. Perversely, I only get urges to walk when I’m in good physical shape.

*Late by New England standards. Portland is close to England latitudely speaking—which means winter sunsets at 3:30 pm and rain, I suppose. But also spectacular springs and summer sunsets at 9:45 pm. I love that later aspect, especially on work days where it seems I still have plenty of leftover when I get home.

Edit: Nothing like uploading the wrong version of something. Sorry for all the previous grammar trouble in the entry above. Yowch.

Here are a few things it’s been my pleasure to witness this past week (in no particular order nor by no means complete)

A cat and infant sharing a common interest.

Bush in 30 seconds.

Steve Lieber aquiring bulk molasses while commenting on its speed and the time of year.

The beginning of Erika Moen’s DAR: A Super-Girly Top-Secret Comic Diary over at Girlamatic.com. As well the other recent comer to Girlamatic, Knights of the Shroud continuing apace. Not to mention Sparkneedle.

A charming minature replica of the African Queen.

A revitalized interest in Emma Goldman.

The Right Number, Part 2.

Margaret Cho’s grace.

The bar and pool table left behind in the basement of a friend’s new house by the previous owner. The bar is trimmed in orange shag carpet, has a full mirror behind it with red light shining up and furry white Playboy bunnies applied to the bar’s front.

Jeff Parker starting a blog.

And Erika being reassured that Kip has no interest in hitting her (well, kinda).

How boring of me. I post a few times about snow then run away for awhile. And I’m backlogged on emails. Again.

You can blame it on a combination of making up day job type work due to last week’s snow storm that shut down Portland, plus a gradual emergance from my hermit hole to visit with friends as to recognize and keep said friends.

Though, alas, I did miss Amy’s opening of a showing of her sublime collages at the Back to Back Cafe here in Portland, located at 616 E. Burnside. I’ve seen them all before so can testify to their greatness. If you live in Portland you should check them out.

Trying really hard not to write about the weather. Again.

But, good lord, was getting to work today much more of an event than it should have been and took far too long. Really, the worse part was getting to the bus, had to walk in the streets and skid on ice for the most part. There were stretches of sidewalk that good neighbors had cleared. Except that with the absence of salt or sand it had all become black ice. Or gray ice, whatever.

But it was actually kind of a relief to actually get out of the house and go somewhere. I’ve been kind house bound with not so much the snow, but the ice on top. I wasn’t so much afraid of falling as twisting my ankle.

Though I did try to put my unexpected time off to good use. yesterday I actually gave myself permission to read most of the day. that is read one of the reference books that I really want and need to read for Dicebox and other projects, the book in particular was and still is The Whole Shebang: the State-of the-Universe(s) Report by Timothy Ferris, a nice overview of current cosmological theory. This is actually my third attempt so I’m really getting the hang of the difference between an open, closed and flat universe, let me tell ya.

It’s actually an enjoyable read and interesting stuff, so I had been a little baffled as to why it’s taking me so long to get through—it’s not that thick and I have familiarity with many of the concepts. But yesterday and today made it clear to me why I’ve been making so little progress.

First, I need to read it in relative quiet. Trying to absorb concepts of four dimensional space and the membrane paradigm theory of a black hole on the crowded and noisy bus today was futile at best. Also I like making notes when reading this type of book. Not only can I pick out concepts that interest me for later review, but the ritual of writing helps to scratch thoughts into my brain very effectively. Lastly, I keep wanting to reference other articles and books on similar subject matter, to see how things match up—hard to do on the bus or while taking a bath.

But what I have been finding especially entertaining this time out with this book is how all these brilliant mathematicians, physicists and theorists keep dying too young in the manner of artists and poets–that one from a mortal skin disease, this one from typhoid, the occasional case of plague. No duels or lover’s revenge yet, but I have faith.

My kitchen sink drains again! Hooray! It’s always the small things you fail to appreciate until a cruel twist of fate or the humor of some small god takes them away from you. Or, in this case, when some damn winter storm comes along and freezes your drain pipe solid.

Because it finally did snow. And then went below freezing. Then came the ice storm along with the lovely winds. And, really, it’s the ice that’s been stopping me from going to work these past couple of days. There was a half ice of it on top of the snow today which would sometimes give way under foot and sometimes not but always accompanied by skidding feet. So I had serious doubts about walking the block to the bus stop without twisting something. And then I would have had to take An hour and a quarter bus ride to go five miles. No thanks. Besides, none of my project leads were coming in, so why even bother?

But, to echo some of the thoughts in the comments of the post previous to this one, as storms go, this has been fairly minor, though you wouldn’t know it from the local news coverage. I mean, when I lived in Western Massachusetts, I was still expected to go to work even if a foot of snow had fallen during the night. And school hardly shut down at all in Pittsburgh due to snow and there are all the various genuine blizzards I’ve survived, you know, three feet in two days type of deals.

What is remarkable for me is the lack of ability the city of Portland has in dealing with this, the official services and average citizen alike. not to mention the crazy habit of putting drain pipes on the outside of the house (I really balked at that when we first looked at our house).

But no power outages and the only deaths so far have been traffic related. And if the temperatures do get up to 41 degrees Fahrenheit as they claim, then all this will melt away like a dream in a matter of hours. And wait another five years for the next serious winter storm.