Elaborations and Grab Bags.

Clearly my doctoral thesis is completed, as I have nothing better to do other than update my blog for youse. In this case, I'm even more pathetic than usual, because I'll use at least part of the entry to elaborate on something I referred to in an older post on PR etiquette. I think the shit is hilarious, if only because I experience first-hand all the fucking time. For those of you too lazy to click on the link to the Wikipedia article on Latin American etiquette, here is the text of the portion applicable to Puerto Ricans. My comments will appear in italics.

Puerto Rico

• Remember that Puerto Rico is politically part of the United States and Puerto Rican people people frequently travel back and forth from the island to such cities as Boston and New York and have for generations. As such, most rules of etiquette in the United States are applicable here as well.
• Among Puerto Ricans, conversations are usually very interactive and full of interruptions. Interruptions mean interest in the subject discussed; (this is a generous way of looking at it) silence denotes disinterest rather than paying close attention. (god forbid anyone actually listen thoughtfully) If you're talking to someone else and a third person joins you, you are expected to stop what you're saying and acknowledge the newcomer.
• Watching television is a very social activity. Asking for quiet is typically both unreasonable and impolite. (They fucking hit the nail on the head here. I wonder if PRs would consider it rude if I asked them to "shut the fuck up, I'm watching "The Office"?)
  
• People's hygiene habits are scrutinized, especially in the tropical climate of Puerto Rico itself. People are expected to take one or more baths or showers daily. Body odor, unshaven legs and underarms in women, bare feet, or wrinkled clothing are considered disgusting. Many men wear cologne. (This is so funny because it's true. If you don't come correct, we will talk lots of shit about how dirty you are. Hilarity. Puritanical hilarity, even.)
  
• Salsa, merengue and even reggaetón may seem like "sexy dancing", but there are unspoken rules. It is rude for a man to dance too close to a woman who is not his wife or girlfriend, even if others seem to be doing it.
• It is considered vulgar and ostentatious to open gifts in public. Gifts are never opened in front of a group of people to avoid people comparing the merits of different gifts. (Never knew about this one.)
  
• Women in Puerto Rico are very independent and many of them dislike to feel patronized or bound to traditional roles. While talking to a woman in informal situations avoid calling them "señorita" (miss) or "señora" (mrs), as they could interpret those titles as 'inexperienced'/'ignorant' or 'old'. (Yes. If you want to be respectful, always refer to women as 'mami' or any variation thereof.)
  

I spent this morning making little progress in my hunt for a thesis topic in the most pleasant manner. I brought out the old hammock and strung it up between the garage and maple tree in the backyard. The sun was out, but not overbearing, and the birds were chirping. I settled my pajama-clad ass in that hammock for several hours while I read the chapter on Verdi in Masters of Italian Opera. I totally just made that name up, but it's something like that. In between mini-chapters, I watched sparrows and orioles hop through the long grass in search of bugs to eat. The combination of long grass with my proximity to the ground made for a cute spectacle: little bird heads would pop out of the green expanse as if attached to a hopping bunny bodies.

Also in Today's Grab Bag: did y'all see yesterday's Oprah? It was about regression therapy, and they showed video clips of the audience and other folks undergoing sessions. It was very interesting and though provoking, I think. Personally, I either have very little psychic ability, or I'm just too obtuse to recognize connections when they appear. For that reason, I've not given much though to whether I've inhabited other bodies in lives past. Still, I'm not one to rule out these possibilities, considering that quantum physics has assured us that just about anything is possible.

Speaking of Quantum Physics, let's move on to another item in Today's Grab Bag: I'm currently reading three too many books, one of which is called "The Fabric of the Cosmos". (Reminds me of the Fabric of Hate.) Anywayz, this book is by Brian Greene, author of "The Elegant Universe," a book and PBS series which I'm sure may of you have experienced. For those of you inexperienced with either of these books, or with physics in general, it can all be summed up like this: reality as we know it does not even begin to approach what really goes on in the universe. Furthermore, you'll have to abandon just about everything you know to be true in order to even sort of kind of understand all the information quantum physicists and string theorists have learned. (I think Greene admits somewhere that even quantum physicists don't really understand quantum physics totally because it's so far out that it's nearly impossible to truly understand.)

I find this type of stuff enthralling, although it's kind of frustrating and scary at the same time. Frustration comes in when I think that no matter how hard I try, no matter how many paradigm shifts I have, it is highly unlikely that I'll ever truly 'see' the world/universe for what it really is/may be/could be. (Probability is a huge component of QP.) The scary part of this all is what if I do just happen to be the one in a trillion person who happens to see between the cracks of reality, and get fucked up in the process? Like, what if my molecules just so happened to line up with the gaps between the molecules of this couch that I'm sitting on, and I get stuck in the couch and vice versa? That would be some crazy LSD-type shit, and I really, really, really am over that shit, not that I ever tried hallucinogenic drugs.

Last in Today's Grab Bag, I bought a New Yorker a few weeks ago to accompany me on my trip through the Great Midwest, and there was a story on Bengal tigers inside. The story wasn't that interesting to me, except for a short anecdote near the beginning, where this man, who lived in tiger territory, was walking near the jungle with a group of others. As they were walking along, this man was ambushed by a tiger. As the tiger grabbed the guy with its paws, the man, realizing he was powerless, embraced the tiger. Immediately, the tiger dropped him, unharmed, and went after another guy in the group, who was carried off into the jungle where he was killed. Crazy ass story, huh?