Charissa’s Comments (group member since Nov 17, 2008)

Charissa’s comments from the Axis Mundi X group.

on the lawns of Windsor?? Awesome!!! Go pagans, it's yer birthday.....

I have happiness envy, does that count?

Outdoor humping starts today.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/...

Happy Beltane, ya'll (belatedly).

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/...

Only in America, people.

I thought Bowling for Columbine was worth seeing, even though I really can't stand Michael Moore anymore. You have to take him with a grain of salt, but the film does cover a lot of interesting information. It does not come up with any big simplified answers. It does explore some (even though tainted by MM's wingnuttery).

at first I thought it said The History of Consciousness. I thought would be a pretty daunting topic.

Kirsty hates clowns. You gotta respect that in a gal.

Ja, sind dunkle Höhlen im Allgemeinen gemütlich. Aber es ist hart, sie herein zu lesen.

people with small couches.

his couch was enormous!

I think I once dated the Large Molecule Heimat.

I guess it's better than it smelling like napalm.

Two of the most complex molecules ever found outside the solar system have been turned up by astronomers peering into Sagittarius B2 (Sgr B2), a massive, vigorous star-forming region near the heart of the Milky Way.

Arnaud Belloche, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, and his colleagues detected the spectral signature of ethyl formate (far left in image) and n-propyl cyanide (at right in image) in electromagnetic radiation from Sgr B2. Both are relatively large organic (carbon-based) molecules—ethyl formate (C2H5OCHO) has 11 atoms and n-propyl cyanide (n-C3H7CN) has 12. Only cyanodecapentayne (HC11N), discovered in 1997, boasts more atoms among known interstellar molecules with 13.

Belloche and his co-authors suspect that the organics formed piecemeal on dust grains in the interstellar medium from pre-made building blocks. The mechanism could produce even more complex molecules, such as the amino acids that form proteins on Earth, but the signatures of such organics have yet to be found.

The researchers used the IRAM 30-meter telescope on Pico Veleta in southern Spain, near the city of Granada, which detects emissions in the millimeter regime—short-wavelength radio waves. Their results were presented this week at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science at the University of Hertfordshire in England and are in press at the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Sgr B2 has been a gold mine of organic compounds—the authors report that most complex molecules so far turned up in interstellar space were first discovered in a hot, dense cloud in the region called the "Large Molecule Heimat," which is where the new research revealed ethyl formate and n-propyl cyanide.

In an interview with the Guardian, Belloche noted that ethyl formate is present in raspberries. The chemical "does happen to give raspberries their flavour," Belloche told the newspaper, "but there are many other molecules that are needed to make space raspberries." At the very least, perhaps ethyl formate makes space smell nice—according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the chemical has "a pleasant, fruity odor."

ahhh... good mama! sounds like you should be on the mend quite soon. **

Oh man Sherrie... you have my sympathies with that. I'd rather drive spikes into my skull than have dental work. I hope you have plenty of the good drugs. Remember to eat. I made that mistake after my wisdom teeth extraction. Feel better soon!! Take some arnica internally if you can get your hands on it. You will heal faster.

damn, that's a really good point. I'm definitely filing that away for one of our "teaching moments". LOL

For what it's worth, apparently when she was with him that night and he was drunk with his friend, she didn't get drunk with him. She was there "babysitting" as she called it. So... yeah, she's on a rescue mission I think.

gods i hope so.

I'm not reading anything published this year yet... but here are the ones that look interesting to me:

Pygmy (May 5) by Chuck Palahniuk
The Year of the Flood (September 8) by Margaret Atwood
The Humbling (November 2) by Philip Roth
Blueberry Girl (March 10, 2009) by Neil Gaiman
Untitled (May 2009) by Michael Crichton
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned (March 17) by Wells Tower

The Crichton I will read because it's what he was writing when he died.

Thanks you all. Very much appreciate the support and perspective. Richard, I am giving your perspective a great deal of consideration. I think keeping close tabs is the key. I haven't made her cut off contact with this boy. I did ground her for the week, but when she returns from Washington and visiting her dad I am considering allowing her to have limited contact with him. I think she is going to have to go through her own process with this, otherwise she'll just wind up choosing the same or worse when she is actually out on her own... without any support or guidance from me. So... I think I will just be very careful about how much time she is allowed to spend out and about with him. Her school schedule is pretty demanding, so it's not like I will have to make up reasons for it.

Bunny, yes, I think she is enjoying feeling needed, and understood. Which is not really something I can fault her for, or compete with. I just pray that she is able to work this through and get to a place in herself where she feels more valuable in general. It kills me that she is so wounded around her male relationships. But go figure.

especially mine.