Author Archives: Kirsten

Seen the latest Rochester Healthy Living?

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I have an piece in the August issue: Much to do About Migraine.

After more than 2 decades of living with migraine, I’ve finally gotten to the point where I can nearly always head them off. The article describes the tricks I use. (My fave standby? Tincture of cayenne =-O)

I’ll post a link to the article once it’s been transferred to RHL’s website, but in the meantime, if you’re in the Rochester, NY area, look for a print copy in your local supermarkets, healthfood stores, athletic clubs, etc.

Pick up a copy. It’s free :-)

A lot like genre women’s fiction

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From an article on the enduring popularity of serial dramas, published in Drexel University’s online culture magazine, The Smart Set:

A telenovela is all about a couple who wants to kiss and a scriptwriter who stands in their way for 150 episodes.

That’s also the fun of both romance novels and romantic comedies, isn’t it? Although obviously for novels it’s the writer who’s in the way.

The article’s author, Stefany Anne Golberg, also makes an observation about how emerging technologies are changing the way people consume serials:

With the advent of On-Demand viewing like Netflix and Hulu, one is able to watch serials from start to finish without missing a moment. What’s totally different than the video rentals of yore is that you can also watch many episodes in quick succession, just like reading the chapters of a book. In a way, you’re having your cake and eating it, too. Each episode is a complete story and also adds to a greater narrative.

Could this help make serials more popular — by enabling people to sit down with them, as compared to receiving them on someone else’s schedule, by installment?

Will it affect the serial’s form?

[UPDATE: And then one day, I wrote a serial novel…]

Reading for its own sake

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Column in the LA Times by David Ulin. Title: The Lost Art of Reading.

The predicament: Ulin was a voracious reader but today finds that he’s having trouble reading books.

These days, however, after spending hours reading e-mails and fielding phone calls in the office, tracking stories across countless websites, I find it difficult to quiet down. I pick up a book and read a paragraph; then my mind wanders and I check my e-mail, drift onto the Internet, pace the house before returning to the page. Or I want to do these things but don’t. I force myself to remain still, to follow whatever I’m reading until the inevitable moment I give myself over to the flow. Eventually I get there, but some nights it takes 20 pages to settle down. What I’m struggling with is the encroachment of the buzz, the sense that there is something out there that merits my attention, when in fact it’s mostly just a series of disconnected riffs and fragments that add up to the anxiety of the age.

Question.

Is he reading the wrong books?

I find that I have trouble when I try a book because I think I’m supposed to read it. Example: piece of literary fiction that’s been lauded by people whose tolerance for literary affectation is greater than mine. Got stacks of that sort of book in my unread pile.

OTOH I couldn’t put down Mark Helprin’s Freddy & Fredericka when I read it a few weeks ago: the engagement was effortless, it was swimming downstream. And he’s definitely a writer’s writer, so it’s not like I gravitate toward pot boilers.

With some quarter of a million print titles published annually in the US now, books themselves have become their own fragmented cacophony. We need to be selective. We need to know when to give up on a book and move on.

Second question: might there be something else at work besides the encroachment of the new media bogeyman?

Unrest is unrest. A feeling that there’s something out there that you’re missing might be a clue that there is something out there that you’re missing — something that might have nothing to do with books and reading.

I’m reminded of the folk tale about the in fool is searching for his key under a street light. The punchline is that he didn’t lose the key near the light; he lost it somewhere else.

Sometimes we have to look for things in places that aren’t so easy or obvious . . .

Inside the Little House

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Interesting piece, in the New Yorker, about Rose, daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I read and re-read all the Little House in the Prairie books as a kid — the love story that culminates the series is one of the sweetest ever written — and still recall the little jolt I felt when I got a little older and realized they are autobiographical.

Click & read for a glimpse at the untold bits of the story . . .

golf blog

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Late last night, after a negotiating a harrowing technological labyrinth on and off for several days, I managed to upgrade to the latest WordPress version on my golf blog, Golfolicious.

It shouldn’t have been hard. I’ve put up a half dozen WordPress sites at this point; for the installation, my preference is Fantastico, an application deployment tool bundled with many hosting services. You pretty much click a button and you’re done. Even better, when it’s time to upgrade, you can use the same tool.

My Golfolicious WordPress instance, however, wasn’t originally installed using Fantastico — so I hesitated trying to use the tool to upgrade.

I could have done a manual upgrade, but the instructions published in the WordPress codex were long, complex, and included steps that I would have had to research further to fully understand.

Finally, I hit on another idea. I own the .net and .org versions of the domain name, as well as the .com. Maybe I could install a current version on the .net, transfer my theme, posts, and comments over, and then point the .com to the .net when I was done?

Call that plan B. Plan A, executed only when I’d done enough research on Plan B to satisfy myself that it was viable, was to try Fantastico.

I did. Didn’t work. Broke the site. Took me awhile to backtrack enough to make it somewhat usable again.

Plan B, OTOH, worked like a charm — particularly since the WordPress Wizards, my heroes, have built in handy import/export tools that make it extremely simple to transfer posts & comments between blogs/URLs/host servers.

Is there anything they haven’t thought of?

I heart WordPress!

And while I’m at it, I also heart Hostgator, my hosting service. Their chat tech support staff are awesome. They are patient, they are cheerful, they take the initiative to do a little extra research if needed to make sure an issue is resolved satisfactorily — my experience with them has really been top notch.

So thanks for all your help as I wrestled through that upgrade, Hostgator!

Now I need to catch up on golf blog posts. I put one up after I finished the upgrade last night — post about a late June trip to play a couple of courses at the Turning Stone resort. Scroll down to see my photo of a wild turkey :-)

You know you’re from Upstate NY When . . .

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Central new york state

Beautiful, isn’t it?

Okay, some of these kinds of forward-by-email jokes are kind of lame, but this one is spot-on — it HAD to be written by someone who actually knows rural Upstate.

Some of them really zinged me — just spot on: 4, 10, 22, 24, 36, 43, 45, 51, 61, 64.

And of course, 30. Because even after years of being gentrified by Rochester ‘burb living, I am proud of having Chenango County roots — I have a better grasp on reality for having grown up there, if I do say so myself :-)

[P.S.: a LOT of my novels are set in upstate New York! The French Emerald (free serial to read online!) starts in Rochester but zigzags all over the state–and part of the plot includes a Revolutionary-era Upstate NY mystery. Loose Dogs is set in Rochester. Dark Chemistry features a “fish out of water” dilemma when a Southern California girl gets stuck in a little Upstate NY town and guess what–ends up liking it ;) — please check them out if you enjoy novels!]

Enjoy!

1. Your idea of a traffic jam is 10 cars waiting to pass a tractor on the highway

2. “Vacation” means going to Syracuse for the weekend

3. You measure distance in hours

4. You know several people who have hit deer more than once

5. You often switch from “heat” to “A/C” in the same day

6. You stay in your house most of the summer because you aren’t used to the heat

7. You drive at 55 mph through 10 feet of snow during a raging blizzard without flinching

8. You see people wearing hunting clothes at social events

9. You install security lights on your house and garage but leave both unlocked

10. One of your neighbors constantly has bonfires

11. You carry jumper cables in your car and your girlfriend knows how to use them

12. There are 7 empty cars running in the parking lot at the supermarket at any given time

13. Your idea of a huge party is one with lots of cheap beer and some people you go to school with

14. Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled in with snow

15. You think sexy lingerie is silk pajamas from wal-mart

16. You know 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, cold, construction

17. It takes you 2 hours to go to the store for one item even when you’re in a rush because you have to stop and talk to everyone in town

18. At least 6 people that you see a day have beards and stains on the front of their shirt

19. Cows are just part of the scenery

20. You or someone you know has a car that sounds like a big truck and can barely make it 20 miles yet no one says anything about it.

21. At least fives times in your normal travel day you will pass or be passed by a beat-up, old ass car that has had an attempted pimping out, such as a brand new oversized spoiler on a rust covered trunk, spinning HUBCABS, or everyones favorite, the performance exhaust on a car running on barely three cylinders.

22. You know that the phrase, “Goin up ta,” applies to going north, south, east, or west, up or down in elevation, and pretty much any other way you can travel.

23. The smell of freshly spread cow manure doesn’t bother you.

24. Its perfectly normal for your life’s aspirations to be working for the county.

25. Getting “dressed up” means tucking your shirt into your jeans and putting on clean work boots.

26. Holloween costumes are always designed around a snowsuit and winter boots.

27. You appreciate the delicacy known as Croghan Bologna, and serve it at all social gatherings.

28. On the same platter as the Croghan Bologna is a selection of flavored cheese curd, which you also love.

29. You know damn well that the verizon guy didn’t walk through your town going, “can you hear me now” because reception is, at best, limited.

30. Your proud of your redneck-ness and where your from.

31. You can name everyone you graduated with.

32. You know what 4-H is.

33. You ever went to a party that was held about 20 miles down a deserted dirt road.

34. You used to drag “main.”

35. You said the ‘F’ word and your parents knew within an hour.

36. You schedule parties around the schedule of different police officers since you know which ones would bust you.

37. You never went or thought about going cow-tipping.

38. School gets canceled for a sports team going to State

39. You could never buy cigarettes cause all the store clerks knew how old you were.

40. When you did find someone old enough to buy smokes for you, you had to drive down country backroads to smoke them.

41. You never missed a Homecoming parade.

42. You still go home for Homecoming.

43. It was cool to date someone from a neighboring town.

44. You had a senior skip day.

45. The whole school went to the same party after graduation.

46. You can’t help but date a friend’s ex.

47. Your car is always filthy from the dirt roads.

48. You think that kids who ride skateboards are weird.

49. The town next to you is considered “trashy” or “snotty” when it is just like your town.

50. Getting paid minimum wage is considered a raise.

51. You refer to anyone with a house newer than 1980 as the “rich people.”

52. The people in the big city dress funny then you pick up on the cool new trend two years later.

53. You bragged to your friends because you got pipes on your truck for your birthday.

54. On Fridays, anyone you want to find can be found at Main Street or the Dairy Queen.

55. Weekend excitement involves a trip to RiteAid.

56. Even the ugly people enter beauty contests.

57. You decide to walk for exercise and 5 people pull over and ask you if you need a ride.

58. Your teachers call you by your older sibling’s name.

59. The closest “cool stores” are at least 45 miles away.

60. The local phone book has only one yellow page.

61. You leave your jacket on the back of the chair in the
cafe, and when you go back the next day, it’s still there, on the same chair.

62. You don’t signal turns because everyone knows where you’re going, anyway.

63. You call a wrong number and they supply you with the correct one.

64. You have to name six surrounding towns to explain to
people where you’re from.

65. Driving to the party on a four wheeler is quite normal.

66. The town population increases by one-third when the universities go on break.

67. When somebody says “Thats billy fucillo HUGE” you know exactly what they are talking about

68. You laugh your head off reading this because you know it’s true and then forward it to everyone in your address book, which is actually half your town.

Longhorn beetle

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Only I’m not sure which one. Anybody know?

long horned beetle

Definitely Cerambycidae, based on the body shape, showiness, length of the antennae, etc., but this particular one’s not in my copy of Petersen’s field guide to NA insects, and I can’t find a pic of it on the ‘net, either . . .

long horned beetle2

Easy to ridicule . . . yeah. I know.

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white-flowersFor the past several days, I’ve been mulling an op-ed piece that ran in last Friday’s Wall Street Journal titled If I Don’t See It, It’s Not There.

The piece is written by Steve Salerno, a former Men’s Health editor who wrote a book in 2005 about how the self-help industry is not really all that helpful.

Salerno’s target this time is the “talking heads” who contributed to the DVD version of The Secret, which — in case you spent 2007 dozing in the ol’ armchair — was a blockbuster addition in the robust tradition of “positive thinking” literature we Americans have been devouring en masse since the days of Dale Carnegie and Norman Vincent Peale.

Salerno takes The Secret crowd to task for the way they’re reacting to the recession — which, truth to tell, isn’t always very, erm, nuanced. For example, he includes a quote from one Nan Akasha who says she chooses not to believe in the recession. The implication being that one can make unpleasantness go away by squeezing one’s eyes shut or something.

But here’s the thing. As seductive as Salerno’s mockery is, open that same paper’s Tuesday May 5 edition and on page A12 there’s a piece about the latest research on quantum physics. The research confirms what quantum physicists have been theorizing for quite some time: first, that particles can somehow stay connected with one another across space (non-locality); and second, that the act of observation is itself somehow involved in defining a quantum particle’s characteristics.

Some people would dismiss this as pertaining only to sub-atomic phenomena. In the big-particle world of paychecks and golf balls and stubbed toes (they would say) quantum spookiness doesn’t apply.

But what if our minds operate on a quantum level?

What if our thoughts are sensitive to quantum-level energy patterns?

What if thought itself is a quantum-level activity?

jesterEven more radical: what if our minds function in some respects like a lens that causes quantum-level particles to resolve and literally come into being as a prelude to perceiving them en aggregate with our physical senses?

And, furthermore, what if the demarcation between our minds, as individuals, isn’t as well-defined as we might suppose?

Think about it. The electromagnetic waves emitting from my brain don’t stop at the edge of my skull.

Is it possible that your brain might start resonating with mine if we stood near each other, or vice versa?

And if so, might there be on a collective level a kind of mass entrainment involving the synchronization of our individual energy fields, that might in turn exert some sort of effect on what we describe as physical phenomenon?

If so, then maybe recessions and pandemics — as well as prosperity and cures — really are influenced by our minds. Not created — this isn’t cartoon magic — but resolved out of a kind of soupy pool of potential events or phenomenon — then fixed into place because we take collective notice.

Personally, I suspect something like this does occur. But its mechanics are not only too subtle to be discerned by our physical senses, they are also too subtle to be described, let alone manipulated in terms as childish as “if I don’t believe in the recession, it won’t have happened.”

Salerno’s mockery isn’t entirely misplaced. I’m reminded of a funeral I attended not long ago, where the preacher assured us that the deceased was sitting on a cloud, watching us. Yes, he meant that literally. Presumably Salerno would guffaw as loudly at that solemn Christian as he does at Bob Procter and Joe Vitale.

Which is too bad, because he’s missing something important — something that might mark a turning point for mankind. Quantum physics attempts to peer into a dimension where space and time don’t exist in the way our senses would conscribe them — where death isn’t really death, and where life really is a kind of dream . . . it would be a shame to miss it just because, stated simplistically, it sounds too fantastic to be true.