Monthly Archives: March 2015

Punctuating Yeats and reading writers’ minds

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‘Yeats’s handwriting resembles a mouse’s electrocardiogram,’ writes the late Daniel Albright in his preamble to the marvellous Everyman Library edition of W. B. Yeats’ Poems, which he edited.

Albright goes on to give a similarly forthright account of the poet’s spelling and punctuation, excerpted below. While acknowledging his debt to Richard Finneran, who oversaw a different collection of Yeats’s poems, Albright parts company from him in two ways:

First, he is more respectful of Yeats’s punctuation than I. He supposes […] that Yeats’s punctuation was rhetorical rather than grammatical, an imaginative attempt to notate breath-pauses, stresses, and so forth; and that the bizarre punctuation in some of Yeats’s later poems is due to the influence of experimental modernists such as T.S. Eliot and Laura Riding. I suppose that Yeats was too ignorant of punctuation to make his deviations from standard practice significant. Although Yeats surely wished to make his…

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The epic fail–an opportunity for learning

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mud pies 027

from jodichilds.blogspot.com

 

I had a roommate long ago who had this great things she would say when things didn’t go right, “Oh, that’s okay, it’s a FOG.” Fucking opportunity for growth. It was hilarious.  It’s super hilarious if you’re a therapy inclined lifelong learner with a strong sense of gallows humor. I am.

Okay, I think I’m the only one ever to fail at the whole30. I mean I didn’t fail, my (facial) skin looks great. But I also had my first facial during that thirty days and wound up getting some really expensive face stuff, so the experiment was somewhat botched. I also was in a very good mood and had lots of energy and little pain during the month. I was also filled with hope at the thought of losing this big ole’ tummy and feeling better–recovering! The epic fail was that I cooked my butt off for 30 days shopping, eating, and cleaning the kitchen.  I seriously have dishpan hands. I didn’t really think it was a thing. I had to get those rubber gloves.  Anyway, here’s the really sad part: I DIDN’T LOSE WEIGHT. And I was totally bloated and yucky. Their website says you may have other issues getting in the way of your weightloss, like for me, Fibro, IBS, no good bacteria in my gut (yes I did a poo test–I spared you a post about that, handing my box of poo to the sweet handsome young man at Fed-Ex was really…I don’t know.)

I am now trying to figure out where to go next. I went to my Naturopath, whom I had a feeling had helped me all she could already (by thankfully prescribing the Methylfolate and Methylcobalamine), but she doesn’t look that thin or healthy herself, and she’s gotten bossier and less prone to really listening. But I went back to give her one more chance.  I felt totally not listened to. I can go to Kaiser for that (Alliopathic doctor). She suggested a ridiculous fodmaps elimination diet which seems not the best idea for me because I did patsy Catsos’ group by group Fodmaps Elimination diet four years ago and learned about what I can and  cannot eat, which is always changing.Three or four years ago it changed a lot when I started eating kefir and sauerkraut on a regular basis. Suddenly I could eat all kinds of Fodmaps with no reaction. So I think it’s really the gut-biome that needs to be fixed, rather than creating a big list of stuff I can’t eat.

Also, there was that study where researchers switched the gut bacteria of a fat and skinny mouse, and the fat mouse got skinny and vice versa. So, maybe get my gut biome repaired and I’ll lose weight and not have IBS. I read another study about dirt-based probiotics (really called soil-based probiotics sbos, not to be confused with sibo, which I don’t have), and now I’m going to start taking some soil based probiotics.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

I remember an April fools show a long time ago on NPR where Alice Waters was supposedly going to start serving dirt crostini at Chez Panisse.  Well, here I go….

Remember, in comments “For me…” is so much kinder than “You should….” I don’t know “shoulds” very much. Thanks for your thoughtful and kind consideration. Some of us are hella sensitive.