Stars, Pot, Book Reviews, Young Adult Novels, and Chess Hotties. October 14, 2005 – Posted in: Aberrant Normalcy

Now if this picture doesn’t inspire you, perhaps you just aren’t paying attention. It’s hard to believe all of our problems, with war in the mideast, the earthquakes in Pakistan, the hurricanes in the Americas, are infinitesimal compared with the scope of the cosmos. Yet, when we are stuck in the doldrums of day to day life, they seem mountainous — indeed, they are for us because of our scale. Several religions have said, “Man is a universe unto himself.” The macrocosm in the microcosm. This unfathomable complexity and beauty exists in you as well, in the workings of your cells and DNA, as they formulate proteins from building blocks in the cell. The universe is incredibly complex, beautiful, and always dynamic. So why on earth do we ever get bored?

Pot makes you smarter? Maybe not, but a very similar chemical has been shown to stimulate cell growth in the brain. Perhaps all those, “wow-man, that’s far-out” moments were not really our brain cells dying, but new ones being made, after all. (And by this analysis, my college years should by far be the smartest years of my life.)

I’m going to be doing some short book reviews for a soon to be released magazine. I’m pretty excited about it because I get to read the books before most people do, and I think reading a book with a critical eye helps one craft their own novel, of which I am 120,000 words into.

Lauren McLaughlin mentions in her blog that she just finished her Young Adult novel and it’s 61,482 words. Congrats Lauren!

And wouldn’t all you (straight) males out there like to play chess against this self-titled “chess-bitch”? Apparently there is a demand for pictures of attractive chess players. From the article, internet photos of Alexandra Kosteniuk, (the Anna Kournikova of chess), another chess goddess, are the hottest thing since sliced bread. There is just something mesmerizing about a smart woman who can outwit you at every step of the way (at chess or otherwise). Just look into Jennifer’s eyes. “You are getting sleepy. You will move your bishop to king-seven.”