Sculpin

“When adult monkeys that have experienced trauma early in life are given even a small dose of yohimbine, a substance that facilitates the release of norepinephrine from the locus coeruleus and other sites, they exhibit several characteristic symptoms of anxiety and affective disorder shown in laboratory animals and humans with excessive CRF or glucocorticoid secretion. These symptomatic behaviors are not observed in monkeys given the same dosage of yohimbine that did not experience early life trauma. These results have since been replicated in humans.

This is quite interesting because it suggests severe stress experienced early in life can rev up our endocrine and autonomic reponses to future stressors as adults. It also implies that some components of monoamine transmission are permanently altered into adulthood…”

— Mind, Stress, and Emotions by Gene Wallenstein

Well, that certainly could explain my reaction to that yohimbe-containing energy drink I tried a few years ago. That thing put me on Planet Freakout. (And this, friends, is how I learned not to play fast and loose with herbal drugs.) I could hardly believe they sold that stuff in grocery stores. I’d hypothesized it was just an immense load of caffeine that was making me spazz out, but when I looked into it, as I recall, the caffeine turned out not to be all that spectacularly high. I’d wondered about that ever since.

Yohimbe has a reputation in some circles as a mild stimulant and aphrodisiac; it has a reputation in other circles as dangerous, and those are the people I tend to believe. In the doses you’d likely find in an energy drink, I suspect it’s not all that big a deal for most people if they drink it only occasionally. (Many brands may even be perfectly safe, in that they don’t actually contain any measurable yohimbine.) But for some of us, apparently, its effects are unusually dramatic. I plan to avoid the stuff forever.

If you, Gentle Reader, have also had experiences that have led you to be a bit high-strung, you may wish to consider especially carefully before ingesting yohimbe.

What a pad!

We pass through a labyrinthine library containing 30,000 books – he has a further 20,000 at his 17th-century palazzo near Urbino – and into a drawing-room full of curiosities: a glass cabinet containing seashells, rare comics and illustrated children’s books, a classical sculpture of a nude man with his arms missing, a jar containing a pair of dog’s testicles, a lute, a banjo, a collection of recorders, and a collage of paintbrushes by his friend the Pop artist Arman.

— Heavyweight champion, a profile of Umberto Eco in the Telegraph. (Via Kitabkhana)

Presumably the jar does not contain all those things.

So many books! I do wonder, though, if at some point all those books start to look a little… That is to say, I don’t think it’ll be too many decades before I look at my own wall of books and am reminded faintly of death. There are good books I own now that I will probably never read. You may carve on my gravestone, “She always meant to get around to it.”

We’re due for one heck of a hot day tomorrow, so today I went out, got scorched, and put in all the plants I’d bought at Sunday’s benefit plant sale: some “Cupani” heirloom sweet peas, a Geranium renardii, half a dozen double maroon hollyhocks, and some lady’s mantle.

The sweet peas may not all make it. They were oversized and rootbound, and they’re only going to get half a day of sun. But hey, they were super-cheap, it was for a good cause, and I love sweet peas. I’ve got them up against an old shoji screen lattice that I’m going to try to use as a trellis. With luck, they’ll give the patio some dappled shade from the afternoon sun.

Tomorrow I’ll wake up a little early and give all the plants a good dose of water to see them through the heat of the day.

Next week I’m going to give Ablebodied-People Beginner Yoga a try, having done Slow Gimp Beginner Yoga for a year and a half. I’m nervous. But it’s time to give it a try.

There was a free sample class today and I checked it out to see what Richard’s style was like. He was very good: precise, rigorous, relaxed. Unfortunately, a lot of the time today was spent talking and demonstrating some advanced poses, so I still don’t know if I can make it through an entire class at his pace. Only one way to find out. Hoo boy.

In other bodily news, it’s getting to be parasol weather again. Today I found out that the back of one of my tank tops is significantly lower than I’d thought. Next time I will be much more generous with the sunscreen.

Sure, it’s propaganda for the organic-food industry, but it’s so adorable and cheerful in the Hardware Wars tradition: Store Wars.

Last night was the night of the Full Flower Moon, according to my Farmer’s Almanac calendar. The next one is the Full Strawberry Moon; the one before it was the Full Pink Moon.

Some other moon names: Wind moon, cold moon, hunger moon, changeable moon, uncertain moon, frog moon, thunder moon, moon of long nights, red moon, rust moon, blood moon, green grain moon, hunter’s moon, ice moon, snow crust moon, wolf moon, noisy goose moon, worm moon, hibernation moon.

I am too shy to join the party, but C. Dale Young, Peter Pereira, and others have been having some fun decomposing Prufrock.

It reminded me a little of my chopping game applied to Doty’s mackerel poem and Auden’s “At The Grave Of Henry James”. My game, though, is more luck than skill.

The things you find when you’re cleaning out your old files. Today I found what I think is a special custard recipe.

One good thing about my ex-boyfriend Jay (and there were a few) was that he made a damn fine custard. When a van knocked me out of a crosswalk, he brought me a whole vat of the stuff. Best breakfast food ever. Goes well with Vicodin and cartoons.

Jay’s custard recipe was a closely-held secret, passed on from his friend Jon. (Custard-making: a manly art?) But one day when I was housesitting for him, I ran across a Post-It with a recipe on it. And since I have become one grumpy ex-girlfriend — life wasn’t all custard, friends — here it is.

5 egg yolks
4 whole eggs
1 1/2 cup sugar

Mix these ingredients.

2 cups heavy cream
2 cups half-and-half
3 tsp vanilla

Heat just until boiling. Mix with the egg-sugar mixture.

Cook in water bath for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Test with fork.

I’m pretty sure there ought to be a pinch of salt in this, though. And if I’m going to take on that saturated fat, I figure, I might as well make the most of it and use a real vanilla bean. And of course you’d temper the mixture and do all the usual custard things.

Ever think so hard in a dream that you wake yourself up? In today’s Afternoon Nap Theatre, I had to list all the men’s names and nicknames I could think of that could also be reasonably common words: Will, Ward, Grant, Frank, Rod, Rob, Bob, Bud, Mike, Bill, Dale, Mark, John, Drew, Nick, Pat, Rich, Tony, Randy, Don, Martin, Victor, Gene… For some dream reason this was Very Important. After a while the list got so long, and I was trying so hard to remember it all, that I woke right up. I’m still muttering things like “Chuck!” or “Derrick!” or “Art!” from time to time.

Josh and I checked out the University Street Fair today and came home with some neat stuff. By far the coolest booth in my opinion was the one belonging to Sundrop Jewelry. They make very pretty glass drop beads with scrap glass and a giant Fresnel lens. I am now the happy owner of a pair of their earrings in a lovely smoky color. (Thanks, Josh!)

There are some movies at the Sundrop site of making jewelry and burning things with the Fresnel lens. Wow, that thing is powerful. Imagine all the things you could do with one of those… I’m kind of kicking myself for not buying a giant Fresnel at auction from the UW a few years ago, but then again, for all I know that’s the very lens that heated the glass for my earrings.