Beauty and Biology

Most people know by now, of the studies that have found biological backing for the traditional categories of human "beauty." Wide hips and firm breasts on a woman signify fertility and health, hence a greater chance that a male who chooses her for a mate will have healthier, more viable offspring. Facial symetry indicates absence of disease or defects that could impact health or lifespan, or be passed on to offspring. Youth is desirable over age.

And women select a man who will be strong, resourceful and able to defend her and her offspring from dangers.

It actually gets more complicated -- at various times in her cycle, a woman leans more towards a man who is nurturing as opposed to rugged. And when a man falls in love with a woman, his testosterone level actually goes down.

Yet, in today's society, a man or a woman who chooses a potential mate only on the biological characteristics noted above -- in other words, is doing exactly what nature programs him or her to do, for the survival of the species -- earns disgust and scorn for being "shallow."

And on the opposite spectrum, modern high fashion favors models, female at least, who are so stick thin and unhealthy that they probably couldn't deliver a Barbie doll baby without a C-section and it would then starve attempting to suckle its mother's atrophied mammary glands.

Just some thoughts a-spinning.

The pitch of spring

Walking past a small grove in the city today, I caught the fragrance of spring. Not tulips or lilac or some such prosaic thing. No, for me the smell of spring is pine resin.

The trees bathe in the newly potent sunshine and the unmistakable aroma carries me off to mountain trails and moments of leisure.

Ancient pine resin, I am told, is responsible for today's petrochemical industry -- everything from the juice in your ride to the plastic wrap for your lunch.

It's powerful stuff. Apparently, one species of pine, the Jeffrey Pine of California, has a slightly different -- and explosive -- chemical composition to its resin than its sisters in the needle-branch tribe. Turpentine makers out there kept having their factories blow up until they figured that out.

I'm thankful for Darlene in Chinese

Okay, that headline will make sense if you perservere to the end of the post.

I bought Chinese food for lunch today. And in doing so, wondered again how I might say thank you in Chinese. Finally remembered my inquiry long enough to look it up on the computer. Xie xie. Pronounced like she-she, but with the tongue lower down in the mouth than if a typical American were to speak.

Turns out to also be a venerable Chinese family name, with variations depending on location. Tse in Taiwan, for example.

Which got me thinking about a beautiful angel from long ago in my life, Darlene. Darlene Tsu. I wonder if maybe her last name might have been some form of that same word.

She was a Polynesian-Asian blend of utter loveliness, with a personality to match. And if I hadn't been a scatterbrained, 15 year old, confused idiot boy at the time, I would have dated, married and deified her.

She was the first girl who really paid any attention to me, but I was too immature to respond properly. To this day, I remember seeing her for the first time, leisurely strolling down to my darkened, early-morning bus stop, with the tiny red torchlight of her cigarette glowing in her hand.

Oh yes, sweet, otherwise innocent Darlene smoked. My fascination for lady smokers had begun long before, but it burst into flame in her glorious presence.

She gave me a ride home, just once, when she became old enough to drive. She offered another but I told you, the 15 year old boy brain has many missing circuits and doesn't always make sense. I worshipped her and would have ridden with her all the way to Alaska in a beat-up Yugo, so I never rode with her again. Go figure.

But on that one ride, ah -- Debbie Gibson on the stereo, warm spring sunshine upon us, life limitless in front of us. And she lit up a cigarette and I rode beside her for twenty blissful minutes or so, bathed in her sweet smoke, breathing it in like the finest perfume, along with the sun-warmed scent of her hair, and making dumb conversation to the best of my pathetic abilities.

It would make perfect sense for her name to mean "thank you." Her presence that year made it worth getting up for high school every morning, even though I was too stupid to capitalize upon it. And by the time I did have a clue, we moved.

Wherever in this world she is today, I hope she got everything she wanted and floats on clouds of bliss.

This is the year in which the U.S. celebrates the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, Virginia, from whence this nation was born.

I realize that to anybody living practically anywhere else in the world, 400 years isn't worth a pfft. Some Europeans probably have cat litter boxes older than that.

The more you study the Jamestown history, the more you realize how messy it all was. Not referring to the battles with the natives -- any idiot by now knows that they had their own human motives for variously supporting or attacking the newcomers, they weren't just naive nature children.

But rather, the notion of saying, this was first, that was first. There was a colony (Roanoke) established further south, which mysteriously vanished, although a local native tribe claims that its survivors joined up with them. And there were several other attempts before Jamestown by the English to found forts along the Atlantic coast, from Newfoundland on down.

Anyway, on some side street in Richmond, Virginia, a metal cross was put up 100 years ago, in commemoration of Jamestown VIP Christopher Newport's visit in 1607 to the future site of that city. It replaces the long-lost, wooden, original cross of Newport's, which he put up somewhere in that general area -- nobody knows exactly where.

Am I stupid for wanting to travel to see this cross, even though it's not the real one and not even in the right place? I'm just trying to do my part to commemorate. It's not like I have to drive for days to get there -- and that's as specific as I dare to be on this blog.

The earth is green beneath your feet

The earth is green beneath your feet.

And not just if you are standing in the grass, or in a puddle of algae.

It is deep, dark green, deep beneath you, in the mantle of the planet.

Peridotite is what they call the stuff. Here, too, there be diamonds. And sometimes, a pretty green gem called Olivine.

Fascinating.

Researchers are now drilling off the coast of Africa, where the peridotite, usually deeply buried beneath other layers of stuff, is mysteriously exposed.

If you find a piece of peridotite for sale in your local rock shop, a chip of the deep earth could be yours to take home.

Or you might find the mineral protruding from the shoulder of some ancient mountain range, such as the American Appalachians, where it was thrust up long ago.

Our planet still holds so many mysteries -- around us, above us and even beneath us.

Being like Ben

It was said of the late American statesman Benjamin Franklin that "people longed for his company."

That's a dream I have for myself, too. It's not about vanity, my looks -- can't do much about genetics. Rather, it's about the pleasure of being comfortable around other people, the communion of spirit and mind, learning to enjoy each unique individual who enters one's life in the same manner as one would enjoy a poem, a waterfall or a mathematical equation --- to be appreciated in all his or her facets.

And when thusly enamored of others, one might expect them to reciprocate, making for joy all around.

There are times when people just seem so interesting and praiseworthy to me -- and other times when I feel to dismiss us all as apes with delusions of grandeur.

There are times when I feel warm and comfortable in the presence of some fellow human; and other times when my words are fumbly, my motions are awkward and I hold back most of my thoughts.

I'm not a brilliant soul but when I have learned something, I desire to share it. Most of the time, that either earns me puzzled looks, dismissals, or occassionally the sincere compliment, "You're so smart," and there it ends. I wasn't seeking a compliment. I was seeking a conversation: what do YOU think about the matter?