Dear People: Getting the boot, getting the pill

Dear Personal Trainer Guy (who is not on my payroll),

Thank you for pointing out to me…and your client…and everyone else standing around that my brand new, favorite exercise that I do at least twice a week is called the “fat man’s pull-up”…nice. A little side note here, I didn’t ask you what it was called. You came up and asked if you and your client could work in with me while I was doing the FMPU. Your client got a kick out of it, grrrr, you almost got a kick out of it, right in the seat of your high tech, water wicking sweat pants.

Now I am perrynoid. What else am I doing? My workouts are pretty much a morphed version of some kind of exercise that are a cross between what I CAN do and what I am WILLING to do. My fear is that there are names for my other marxercises. Am I doing the “lazy leg press”, “chubby chest press”, “girlie glutes”, “crack head crunches” , “the pansy pushup”…the list goes on and on in my head. I may just have to make up my own names and announce them while I am doing them. I can hear me know, “Wow, this Def Con Dip I am doing it going to hurt tomorrow, especially after that set of Power Ranger Pull-ups.” Wait a minute…I think Power Ranger Pull-ups are a brand of training diapers for little boys….never mind…that’s not so impressive. Hmmm, I may end up doing more harm than good. Maybe I might just recommend to “said trainer” that such negative names for exercises are not the best choice for him to use in his chosen profession, especially since he works with a lot of overweight people. I also need to start stretching so that I can get my foot up higher just in case I might need to kick “said trainer” in the seat of his high tech pants.

Dear Yaz Telemarketer,

No, I have not been using Yaz, the female birth control pill. Thanks for calling me for the second time and letting me know about the harmful side effects of this pill designed for young girls 14 and up ( but not recommended for anyone over the age of 35), that treats acne and also allows them to sleep around responsibly. But no, I have different plumbing and have no use for this product and do not need to be part of the pending class action lawsuit. On the other hand, if I do start to notice headaches, swelling, dizziness, blood clots, chest pain or if I have a heart attack or a stroke, I will keep your number and have someone call for me. I could have been drugged and not known it; you never know. Is that how you got my name and cell phone number? Really…how did you get my name and number? Did someone turn me in? Has someone Yaz-roofied me and then confessed? Should I be perrynoid? I’ll bet it was someone at the gym. Somebody saw me doing my 10lb dumb bell curls and my overhead press that looks more like a cheerleader move and slipped me a Yaz-roofie in my strawberry flavored water (darn you Dasani and your delicious fruity flavored water)….I never tasted a thing…except strawberry. This explains everything. My inability to gain muscle, my 14 year old girl arms….it’s all coming together now. While I have been at the gym surrounded my juicing, testosterone reeking gym rat comrades, I have been “unjuicing” with and strawberry flavored estrogen cocktail. OMG…I’ve been Yazzercising!

Hmmmm, maybe I should CSI this and come to the conclusion that this is all that trainer’s fault…that’s got to be it. I’m going to start stretching today. I’ve got some very high, seemingly rock hard glutes to kick; I may need some boots. If any of you see me walk in to the gym in the near future wearing combat boots, you will know what is about to go down.

The Evolution of Art

A new scientific breakthrough has happened and it has left  the art world spinning. The Sistine Chapel has long been cursed with water and dampness issues. Parts were rebuilt and redesigned early on, as water runoff became a big problem in this structure. Mold was also a problem that they had to deal with, in what is one of the most beautiful interior buildings in the world. Recently, while looking to clean areas around the artwork on the ceiling, scientists were brought in to figure out some unusual looking areas on the paintings. What they discovered is that what we currently know about those famous paintings may be completely wrong. The discoveries were of several types of mold but there are three that have opened up and whole new Pandora's box in the scientific and art communities.

The first, for reader's sake, we will call the "red mold". You can see here that it is a true red and is considered to be in the "slime mold" family. It loves damp, wet areas.

 

. The next mold we will call the "yellow mold". Yellow mold can also be one of the slime molds. Yellow mold,  like the red mold, also loves places that stay damp and moist.

 

 The third type of mold is the blue mold. The blue mold is called a "mildew mold" and just like the other molds, thrives in damp areas.

 These threes molds were all found in the ceiling and other areas of the Sistine Chapel and were growing on the plaster as well as the stone. So what does all of this mean? Why is this important? This is why: these are the three primary colors. At several points in the investigation , scientists noted an overlap of the molds thus creating every color in the color spectrum. Some areas resembled sunsets while other areas looked like green fields and flowers, much like the works of Monet. Upon further investigation of the ingredients in the plaster, scientists have come to the conclusion that what we have considered for so long to be the  work of artist Michelangelo, is  a lie. One cornerstone of the structure was studied and an embedded fossil was found that dated 500,000 years old. It seems the structure must have been started many years ago by prehistoric man. Wood tested in the beams was found to be over 1,000 years old. It is now believed that the Sistine Chapel may have been the inspiration for Solomon's Temple built about 2,500 years ago. We have no exact date on the building of the Sistine Chapel other than it was built in stages . It seems the written history of this building has been handed down and reinterpreted to fit the story of the church congregation that moved into it. Even though the occurrences post 1470's are probably true, the creation of the building, the real history of who built it and the origins of the art on the ceiling are up for new interpretations.

 

What is important about all of this is that Scientists have been able to conclude that the molds, over hundreds of years, slowly blended and grew and morphed into what we see on the ceilings of the Sistine Chapel. What we have generally thought to be the works of the artist Michelangelo, are simply the creations of mold over hundreds of years. Part of what we see is our brain making sense of it all and "filling in the blanks" of the visual field.

 

Michelangelo was a sculptor and we know did some plaster work there in that old building. We know he was an artist. It is now thought that once he saw the molds he took claim of them as his own paintings. It is a bit staggering to realize that all those beautiful scenes up on the ceiling are merely the accidental mixing of different types of mold, but science has proved it. There are also naturally occurring pigments that have come in through rain, evaporation, heat,pollens, etc. Some theorist believe that Michelangelo may have added some pigments to help brighten or shape some of the pictures that had already been created.

 

The art world is stunned and many are fighting this discovery to the bitter end. Some artists, even educated ones, are refusing to believe what science can prove. Many say that these two dimensional pieces of art are just too complex to be accidental mold configurations. Lobbyist for the scientific community are currently working hard , before it even hits the press, to get the creators of textbooks in our public schools changed. Leaders in the education unions are behind this, claiming we can no longer stand by and give Michelangelo credit for something that just happened by accident. Years from now, after the history books have been rewritten and the younger generations are taught the truth about the Sistine Chapel and the origins of its colorful ceilings, I have a feeling the older generations and some religious factions will still be holding on to what they were taught when they grew up. No amount of scientific evidence or proof will make them budge. I am not sure why they will be like this, but I predict it. Let's face it, you can't argue with science, its findings, or how it is interpreted. It might be a bit hard to believe that those works of art "just happened" but it could happen and it did happen. They are just colors on plaster.

 

Millions of dollars of funding has been provided from the United States for research to see if possibly these molds do have some level of intelligence which could open up and whole new world of research. This new approach to looking at art could change everything we know about art today. To some, the works on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel will never look the same. For some, those images will bring about even more wonder and amazement and to others they will have lost their appeal because the "art" has gone from being created by a skilled artist to just being patches of mold that were allowed to roam free and collide.