Category Archives: Oceanic

03-Jump

1 Reply

Coolest

Truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast.

Nothing exists in itself.

If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more.

But if the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm.

For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich.

For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air.

Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.

Chapter 11, Nightgown – Moby Dick by Herman Melville

* Thank you Will Henry for Wallace-the-Brave

13-Grip

3 Replies

Oaring

Stroke!

One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of existence. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to the total acceptance of living and dying.

The Shoes of the Fisherman by Morris L. West,

04-Ride

1 Reply
Atlantic -> Pacific

These two bicycled from one side of the USA to the other, just like this! Such a healthy duo!

Update 2024: I’m feeling fine. Getting energy back. Speech is still affected, but can at least communicate. Hoping focus on exercise and caloric restriction proves effective.

Update 2023: Doctor asks for me to take a look at the MRI. It is stable from before, not worse or better. The good thing is there is no contrast enhancement to suggest an ongoing active infection. Since steroids have not helped symptoms, think it is best to do another spinal tap (lumbar puncture) just to make sure there is no inflammatory process.

29-Uman

1 Reply

Anatomy

Inside the Human Cell

I check my heart now, and I find that there is still a feeling there, of something hot and struggling.

I roll my eyes back under my closed lids, and there is the sense of opening in the middle of my forehead.

The chest thing is like fighting for words and the forehead thing is pure and empty, like after all the words have been said.

There now.

Belief. I have the biology of it. All I need is the stuff to put in there. All I need are the words.

The Gathering by Anne Enright (2007)

25-Trix

Leave a reply

Mitochondria

<- 3-D drawing • microscopic photo ->

Mitochondria supply the energy in the cell.

Heart muscle cells have the most mitochondria, thousands per cell.

High-intensity interval training in aerobic exercises such as biking and walking cause cells to make more proteins for their energy-producing mitochondria, effectively stopping aging at the cellular level.

What would happen if all the mitochondria in your body released all their energy at once?

16-Barf

2 Replies

Spring Verdure

At the time I now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a healthy old age; that sort of old age which seems merging into a second flowering youth, for among all the fissures of his wrinkles, there shone certain mild gleams of a newly developing bloom–the spring verdure peeping forth even beneath February’s snow.

Moby Dick, the White Whale by Herman Melville