When it’s late at night and raining, like it is tonight, I can more easily admit to myself that I don’t know much about what the future holds. During the daytime, I have to pretend I have the answers. I have to make stuff happen and be dependable. But at night, at night I can relax and decompress. I can look out the window and watch the rain falling. I can see the sky on clear nights. I can imagine what’s out there and realize how small and insignificant all this is.

It’s amazing really, that we’re expected to do laundry and dishes and pay bills when the universe exists. I hate the minutiae sometimes, I really do. I don’t want to always think about what I have to do. I want to think about what is possible. But so often that’s chalked up to daydreaming and responsible people don’t daydream, or at least that’s what I’m told…but I don’t listen.

I daydream all the time. Sometimes I wonder if I have adult onset ADD because my mind tries to wrap itself around these intensely complex concepts and I can drift off from the awe of it all. I think I daydream because I long for night, when my mind quiets and things become more clear. I’d like to think that. I don’t know if that’s really true, though, because my real dreams are usually fraught with themes that show my fear and uncertainty.

If you believe in dream diaries, which I didn’t used to but they’ve been very telling, then you’d know that my dreams are usually nightmare-esque. I’m running and scared, trying to defend myself or others, fighting off people who are trying to drag me down into the unknown. I once dreamt that my dad had died and I used his body as a shield against a ninja who was chucking throwing stars at me and they stuck in my father’s body. I had used him as a human shield because he’s always tried to take care of me.

Then another time, Steve Martin and I were in a cabin…yeah I don’t know…and it had a screened in porch and these armed guys with swords were crossing the ravine down below and were coming up to attack us. I thought I had a sword in my hand so I parried only to realize it was a fish and the fish flopped down, not inflicting any damage, so I had no real defense against the attack.

I dream about weird shit. I dream about girls in giant tanks full of water and tape worms and the tape worms go in her mouth and down her throat. I never dream about anything real, though. I don’t get epiphanies in my dreams like some people. I don’t find the answers, magically. I just keep mulling them over again and again until I’m so exhausted from the analysis that I just stop thinking about it and put it to rest.

From what I hear about most of us, that seems to be universal. We stagnate because we fear change. We have analysis paralysis and never move forward. It’s hard to move forward when you’re uncertain in which direction you want to go. I’m an introvert who craves one-on-one or one-on-few interaction, and yet I love getting up and speaking in front of a group or a crowd and teaching them something and making them laugh. I’m a dog-lover, animal advocate, scientist, teacher, activist, writer, actor, singer, daughter, cousin, niece, best friend, lover. My mind swims with everything that I am and everything I want to be. I envy those who have one passion and know what they want to do with their lives. I can’t make that decision, to focus on one thing and cut the others down or out completely.

I keep trying to make myself, though. I keep trying to make myself pick one thing and master the shit out of it. I have no idea why. I have no idea why I’m unsatisfied with simply being and living my life.

That’s not completely true. I read a lot of blogs and am friends with a lot of people with entrepreneurial spirits. They are always working on something amazing that takes a ton of ambition and a ton of energy to do. They seem to live it and breathe it. They constantly blog about it. I am lucky if I remember to blog every month, even though I feel like I have a ton to say, I just wind up internalizing it instead of saying it. I say it, just not so often on this site. Probably because it’s a personal site with no real niche, just a generalized world-view and the stupid little pieces of my life that no one cares about but me.

Ah well, the ramblings of a single 30 year old woman who has all the choices in the world and no idea which one to choose. Life could be so much worse. I do envy the people who know which road to travel down, but I am so grateful that I am able to make that choice myself and not have it made for me. The great dichotomy of life.

We always want to prolong the high, don’t we? Luckily for us North Carolinians, there are a bunch of us local to the Triangle area that can hopefully meet throughout the year and keep that SciO high in tact.

Two days ago, a few of us met at Fullsteam Brewery in Durham and tacked ourselves onto the already-scheduled Durham Tweetup. The vibe was intense and there were tons of people in the space, but we were still able to find each other and get some great conversations going.

Photo from the Durham Tweet Up at Fullsteam Brewery. [Regina Twine - triangle.com]

There are a few variables, however, so I need to poll my #TriSciTweetup people to figure out preferences and scheduling. Check out the form below and let me know what works for you. I’ll send a follow-up message in about a week or so once I get some input.

If you can’t view the form above, please visit this link instead.

My Twitter list for NC members of SciO is here. Feel free to browse and let me know if you have additions/edits.

If there are any SciO attendees who live near each other, this is your chance! Get together periodically and keep the love alive!

Many of the attendees at ScienceOnline2012 were academic scientists and/or science journalists and bloggers. They had distinct niches that they were studying or preferred to focus on in their writing. I love it all and often can’t make up my mind what I love more. So it was a little rough to be an industry scientist and also a newbie to the unconference, this being my first year (but not my last, I’m sure). I’ve always been social media and internet savvy and working for an old-school corporate entity often conflicts with that mindset, but when I heard about SciO12, I knew I had to be a part of it.

Some scientists are lucky. They hold onto the passion for their field of study no matter what is thrown in their paths. Other scientists, like myself, have grown disheartened with the business of science. Maybe if I would have thrown myself into a doctoral program instead of terminating at a masters degree, and stayed in an academic setting where I felt most at home, I’d be at the same place as many of the other SciOs.

Maybe.

All I know is that we have to continue to move forward, hone our skills, make connections and keep growing as people.

The sessions at SciO encompassed a whole host of disciplines from science documentaries and internet outreach to conflicts between scientists and the journalists who cover them. There was an art show, a film fest, and I focused more on the social and performance/production side of things, sticking to video production, ebooks, social media and advocacy.

It was thrilling to be a part of that energy and to feed off of it, to feel passion for the subject I decided in an 8th grade genetics class would become my career.

So to Bora, Karyn and Anton, for an amazing job organizing and pulling the whole thing off, I want to say, “Thank you.”

To David Shiffman and Austin Gallagher, for showing me the importance of visualization and outreach in helping people understand science, I want to say, “Thank you.”

To Matt Shipman and Dr. Ann Ross at NC State, for an impressive tour of the Forensic Anthropology lab there, I want to say, “Thank you.”

To Mireya Mayor and Chancellor Woodson of NC State, for inspiration and generosity across the board, I want to say, “Thank you.”

To Tom Levenson, for your award-winning work on Origins and sharing some of that brilliance with the rest of us, I want to say, “Thank you.”

To Dawn and Brian Crawford of BCDC Ideas, for logistics that kept 450 attendees plugged-in and happy, I want to say, “Thank you.”

I don’t know what my future holds. Thanks to SciO, however, it holds a little more oomph.

My girl has some serious storm anxiety. Ironic considering her name: Raina.

I can easily tell that she’s in a storm trance because her eyes and her face completely change into something that doesn’t even look like her. She starts to pant and pace and shake uncontrollably. She jumps up on me and then runs away and comes back every two seconds to rinse and repeat.

Against a lot of dog trainers’ advice of “ignore them and they’ll calm down”, I try to comfort her. I try to hold her while I’m reading a book or just lay on the bed in a relaxed state that I hope she’ll mirror.

That usually doesn’t work. Not gonna lie.

However, there are three things that work in three very different ways.

a) Her crate. She loves her crate, often times laying in it for hours on days when she takes lazy naps. She hates it when I wash the blankies and toys she has hidden away in there because it removes her scent-sense of home. When it storms, I put her in her crate and she will get angry for about five minutes. She’ll bark at me and make a fuss, but in a few minutes she’s generally subdued and will lay there, calmly panting, until I let her out.

b) A car ride. For a dog that hates the thunder and noise that a hard rain can generate, she sure loves driving in it. I’ll even roll down the window and she sticks her face out into the rain and sniffs hard. A ten minute drive, while not always appropriate due to gas prices, can calm her down drastically and allow her to drift off to a restful sleep as soon as we get back home.

c) Cooking in the kitchen! Surprisingly enough, I’ve learned that giving her a distraction that also keeps my energy distracted from her distress is a win/win. I start cooking something, even if it only takes a half hour, and she will sit in the laundry room off the kitchen. It keeps her in a calm state without making her angry in her crate.

Now, there are certain times when driving or cooking is not going to work. Four AM, for instance. For those times, there is the crate. For all others, I try to use the less-stressful of the options.

Who knew? My dog loves to drive and cook. She’s so cultured.

I’ve started the Inbound Marketing University certificate program through Hubspot. My first homework assignment is to write a post describing three best practices for blogging strategy to adopt into a business blog.

1. Review metrics and determine which posts garner the highest traffic. Gear future posts in that direction to maintain that readership.
2. Blog daily or multiple times a day, if possible. The increased amount of blog posts offers new information more frequently and increases site traffic, boosting customer acquisition 42%.
3. Consider the design and ease of use of the blog. It should have a clean and minimal design, so as not to distract from the content. The side-bars are equally important. They should provide valuable information about the business, its products/services, and external relevant resources.

A Christian friend and I often have in-depth discussions on what we believe and why. During a recent conversation on Facebook, we were discussing evolution and I was trying to teach her how to “speak science.”  I tried to teach a commenter on the discussion that, when describing evolution as “just a theory,” that she is misstating, and what she is actually referring to is a “hypothesis.” I told her what “theory” means in the scientific world.

The conversation went back and forth a little bit, but without any real resolution. No surprise there. My friend was trying to explain why she “just knew and felt in her heart” that there was a God and Jesus, and the Bible was truth. However when I explained that over 40% of Lucy’s bones were more than enough to calculate and simulate the rest of her body, that was shaken off as “not enough evidence” for her. An interesting hypocrisy, I’d say. But luckily we are able to look beyond individual beliefs, remain friends, and get some damned good discussions going.

Though, I didn’t really feel it necessary to go into Ardi.

Luckily I’m in high spirits because I’m attending ScienceOnline2012 in a couple of weeks here in North Carolina, and I’m going to meet some brilliant minds. A few of those minds made a video called, “Let’s Talk About Evolution,” and I think it’s good timing to share it with whoever actually reads this silly little blog of mine.

The video was produced by Matt Shipman, David Wescott, Jamie Vernon, Kevin Zelnio and Andrea Kuszewski. Hit them up on Google +. They’ll make you smarter.

Enjoy!

Within the last few months, I’ve discovered that Raina’s social issues that present as an autism mimic are something called 5-Week Syndrome. I only have one article on it and it’s not online anywhere; a dog trainer friend sent it to me. It describes the lack of social interaction and stimulation that a mother and siblings give to the puppy when the dog’s taken from its family between the 5-week and 8-week period.

The pup doesn’t have mom nipping at it if it suckles too much or too hard, or if it plays too rough with its siblings. It also doesn’t have the playful development of sibling/sibling interaction and so it can be slightly to greatly developmentally disabled.

This leads to some interesting dog-on-dog interactions where the affected dog oversteps boundaries which can include sniffing for longer than is socially acceptable to a dog, overt posturing, and blocking the path of the other dog in hopes of making them stay where they are instead of walking away.

Raina does all of that. She has separation anxiety with anyone she meets that she likes, dog or human alike. Even if she meets them for a total of 2 minutes. If they try to walk away and she wants them to stay, she will bark and try to get their attention. Unfortunately, the dogs’ owners sometimes think Raina is being aggressive or nasty but this is not the case.

My young cousin is autistic. When he was younger he would make himself sick thinking about people leaving him and throw fits of rage. If you went to his house, you had to immediately remove your shoes so he knew you weren’t going to leave him.

Raina has this same shoe obsession. She knows when the shoes come off that we’re home and when the shoes go on, she gets nervous. If she thinks she’s going with me then the shoes are a welcomed addition. If she suspects she is being left behind, it makes her anxious.

I love learning about my dog and her tendencies not for the sake of knowing what’s “wrong” or different with her compared to what others may perceive as normal canine behavior, although it is nice to realize that her behavior is fueled by a developmental deficit rather than feeling as if I’ve failed as a dog parent. But because it helps me to understand the inner workings of her mind that she can’t voice to me herself. That is priceless when dealing with a dog with any type of behavioral issues because if you don’t understand the root cause, you will have a hell of a hard time figuring out how to approach training or, in all honesty, the simple act of living life with your dog.

I’m always disappointed when I hear a beautiful melody and listen to connect with the lyrics, only to find it’s a religious song masquerading as secular pop or rock. I simply don’t identify with religious songs, no matter what shape they take. So when winter rolls around, and the holidays take over every media outlet in existence, I like to focus on secular songs that are cheerful and/or reflective to remind me what I find joyous in the season of reason.

In no particular order:

• Jingle Bells
• Let It Snow
• Jingle Bell Rock
• White Christmas
• Blue Christmas
• I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
• Winter Wonderland
• Santa Claus is Coming to Town (although he borders on creepy stalker, so meh)
• Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer
• Frosty The Snowman
• Imagine (not xmassy but I think it suits this list)
• Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire
• Run, Run Rudolph
• Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer
• Deck The Hall
• Carol of the Bells
• Silver Bells
• Holly Jolly Christmas
• Santa Baby
• I’ll Be Home For Christmas
• Dominic The Donkey
• Up On The Rooftop
• My Two Front Teeth
• Melike Liki Maka
• The Chipmunk Song
• Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
• It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas
• Nuttin’ For Christmas
• So This Is Christmas
• We Need A Little Christmas
• Merry Christmas Darling
• Baby It’s Cold Outside
• I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas
• Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree

I made a playlist featuring all of these songs, if you’re interested, or just view the embedded list here:

Feel free to leave comments with any suggestions of your own, of course, but this one is definitely my new favorite:

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Festivus, Wonderful Winter Solstice, and Don’t Freeze Your Ass Off to everyone else. ;o)

My Squiggles is lucky. His home used to be a tree in a backyard to which he was chained, with very little affection, and very many mosquitos transmitting heartworm.

His home is with me, now, and with his big sister, Raina.

He has his choice of three beds (two dog beds and one human bed), a big sister who loves him, and a furmom who would sacrifice sleep to make sure that he isn’t disturbed when snoozing next to me…

You see, for Squiggy, a typical day for him did not allow for much rest. He was chained to that tree, watching his friends chained to their trees, but unable to touch them or play or snuggle. He would doze off only to be ripped from his sleep by a sound that he couldn’t place. Somewhere in the trees, maybe.

Maybe it was just a squirrel. Maybe it was a human, walking. Maybe it was a bigger animal that would like nothing more than to attack, kill, and eat the chained dogs who had no way to escape or seek shelter.

The first month that Squiggy came to stay with me, he would often wake up from a nap snarling and snapping at me. He thought he was still back in that yard, chained to that tree, unable to run away from impending danger. He’s been with me since August, and, in those four months, he has transformed. He will still occasionally wake up with a grumble and look around, startled, but his demeanor has calmed down considerably. He realizes that if he sees me, smells me, sees Raina, that he is safe. He is home.

My Squiggles is lucky.

For many animals, this winter will be their last. They’ll be starved, frozen, beaten, or their will to live will be broken, and they will just give up.

People like Ashley Owen Hill of Lucky Dog Rescue give these “lost cause” dogs a chance at life again. She makes every dog she comes in contact with lucky.

I didn’t get Squiggy from Lucky Dog; he came from Dogs Deserve Better and miss Holly Bell in Georgia who has been Squiggy’s biggest supporter in his journey to our home.

I just wanted to give to Ashley something that she gives to her dogs every single day: hope. Ashley needs hope to get her through the holiday season and beyond. She needs supporters to help her to continue in her quest to make each dog a Lucky Dog.

From her blog:

As each of you spend time with your families this holiday season… please remember that millions of homeless animals are not so lucky. Please remember that not everyone gets to go home for the holidays. Please remember that not everyone has someone to love them that day.

Please visit Ashley’s blog and remember that there are millions of homeless animals out there who need food, shelter, and affection, not only on a spare Saturday, but every day, including holidays.

Please help if you can. If you can’t donate, please share this post and/or Ashley’s blog and amplify our voices for the love of dog.

Click to tweet this message!

“…we came to learn that no practice or tradition trumps the human rights that belong to all of us.”

This recognition did not occur all at once. It evolved over time. And as it did, we understood that we were honoring rights that people always had, rather than creating new or special rights for them. Like being a woman, like being a racial, religious, tribal, or ethnic minority, being LGBT does not make you less human. And that is why gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.

It is violation of human rights when people are beaten or killed because of their sexual orientation, or because they do not conform to cultural norms about how men and women should look or behave. It is a violation of human rights when governments declare it illegal to be gay, or allow those who harm gay people to go unpunished. It is a violation of human rights when lesbian or transgendered women are subjected to so-called corrective rape, or forcibly subjected to hormone treatments, or when people are murdered after public calls for violence toward gays, or when they are forced to flee their nations and seek asylum in other lands to save their lives. And it is a violation of human rights when life-saving care is withheld from people because they are gay, or equal access to justice is denied to people because they are gay, or public spaces are out of bounds to people because they are gay. No matter what we look like, where we come from, or who we are, we are all equally entitled to our human rights and dignity…

…The third, and perhaps most challenging, issue arises when people cite religious or cultural values as a reason to violate or not to protect the human rights of LGBT citizens. This is not unlike the justification offered for violent practices towards women like honor killings, widow burning, or female genital mutilation. Some people still defend those practices as part of a cultural tradition. But violence toward women isn’t cultural; it’s criminal. Likewise with slavery, what was once justified as sanctioned by God is now properly reviled as an unconscionable violation of human rights…

…But progress comes from changes in laws. In many places, including my own country, legal protections have preceded, not followed, broader recognition of rights. Laws have a teaching effect. Laws that discriminate validate other kinds of discrimination. Laws that require equal protections reinforce the moral imperative of equality. And practically speaking, it is often the case that laws must change before fears about change dissipate. [Full text]

You can also watch the video here.