The Results Are In!

Back in November I decided to get my DNA done and contribute the results to the National Geographic's project to trace various peoples' movements over the globe.  The following represents my forebears 6 generations back.


40% Northern European

37% Mediterranean

16% Southwest Asian

6% Native American

Then we go way back, when my early ancestors were screwing around with other hominids:

My hominid ancestry  2.1% Neanderthal and 1.5% Denisovan

Neanderthal left; modernish human right

Forecasting Interior Decorating Trends

The other day I watched The Illustrated Man, adapted from the Ray Bradbury collection of the same name.  A crazy bum, who is covered with tatoos, tells a young man he meets that a woman from the future did the "skin illustrations," which "come alive" if you look at them long enough.  This coming alive involves diversions to 3 short sci-fi stories.  It's the first story that concerns me here;  in it, the tatooed man and future woman live in the future in a futuristic house.  The scenery people for IM made the then-common assumption that future interior decorators would work entirely in white.  White walls. White floors.  White ceilings.  White furniture.  Why this whiteness?  One theory:  people in the future will like to show off the fact that they needn't opt for the darker colors that don't show dirt, since they have robots to keep everything spick and span.

The bum/future-man, played by Rod Steiger, complains about the economic necessity (in the future)of allowing people to work only six months out of the year.  What is he to do with that other six months?!  Why couldn't he brighten up his existence with some color?  Hook a red rug.  Buy a blue couch.  If he had invited his young son to help him paper the walls and paint the furniture, maybe they would have bonded.  And his wife and daughter could also have bonded while looking through decorating samples and buying fancy pillows. Interior decorating could have brought this family closer and perhaps the kids wouldn't have set the parents up to get killed.  Just a thought.

Down-Memory-Lane Monday: My Room

This was taken in the 111 Beryl St. house, in what used to be Conrad's room. After I left for college, he asked if we could switch rooms. As you can see, the wallpaper features ships, railroads, and other such stuff. My room's wallpaper had a golden, curvey pattern.
It had not occured to me that I had got the better room. Conrad had never complained to me. But my room had all the advantages: it was on a corner, giving it views in two directions, and was right next to the bathroom, and was farther away from our parents' room.
Now I wonder if he was resenting my superior quarters all those years. Perhaps that's why, when I was away at college, he buried my fossil collection in the compost heap.

Down-Memory-Lane Monday: Hair Continued

When I was a little girl, I wanted long hair swinging wildly down my back. My mother said that if I was going to have long hair, it would have to be styled. She thought long hair just hanging around was sloppy. So I spent many nights sleeping on spoolies, a 60s innovation. Finally, I gave up and consented to a pixie cut, which appears in almost all my young photos.
I can now sympathize with her. Long hair catches on things, gets easily tangled, and is generally a lot of work for a mother trying to keep her daughter neat. Can I find some low-upkeep substitute for long hair? I haven't so far.I wanted hair like that sported by Vinnie Ream, sculptor of the Lincoln statue in the Capitol Rotunda.

My mother insisted on some arrangement like this lady's.

I ended up going the short, practical route.

More Old Photos

Maybe I'll try scanning these again. It's hard to get the glare out when photographing photographs.

Those Old Photos

I've been scanning some of my old photos, but the black & white ones come out looking like random ink blotches. So I tried photographing them. Except for a bit of reflection, they came out pretty good.