Why don't more people tell physics jokes?

So, I've been thinking about Schroedinger and his cat a little bit over the past few days. I don't know why really. I'm going to explore it here.

Schroedinger's cat is a Thought Experiment to do with Quantum Physics. Heavy stuff, I know. Basically, Schroedinger proposes you put a cat in a box with a vial of poison and a Geiger counter. If the Geiger counter detects radiation, the poison vial breaks and kills the cat. No radiation, poison intact, cat stays alive. The point being, that until an observation is made one way or the other this closed system exists in both states at once; the poison is both intact and broken, cat both alive and dead.

I think I started thinking about this when I chucked a t-shirt on the other morning to head into the lab. I suddenly realised, even though I've had this shirt for ages, I never noticed that it is Schroedinger's cat. It's just a cat, but it seems to be created out of negative space - the outlines are white, and kind of dotted-line-ish. The things that would be shading usually are white. It has white pupils. It's a freaky effing cat when you finally pay attention to it. Anyway, the spots on this cat are multicoloured - red, green, yellow, blue. What the hell kind of cat is this? Well, the caption says it all. 'Philosophy Cat.' It's a cat that could be in any number of states at once, existing all at the same time, until someone makes an observation and decides what is going on. Schroedinger's Cat.

Realising this made me feel like a bit of a super nerd. How many people who bought this shirt at a young woman's clothing store would realise the greater implications of it? None of them, probably. I have a t-shirt which is a physics joke. Win.

So then, I started thinking about the concept. I think it's the state my life is in at the moment. I am existing in at least two different states at once and I need to make an observation, or somebody needs to make an observation, for me to collapse into one state or the other.

I am both married and not. I am both confident and a quivering mess. I am both sure of my future and completely unsure where it could turn. I am both lover and fighter. Intellectual and completely stupid. Asleep and awake. Alive and not-alive. Addicted and able to quit anytime.

I'm waiting for someone to make an observation. To see me for what I really am. I wish that person had been my Husband. I tried so hard to make it him. I tried to be the one he wanted to observe. But I'm just not and I've been lying about who I am for 3 years.

Wow. Heavy stuff for a Monday. I warned you. I can't believe this all came out from a t-shirt.

A Continuance.

So there did end up being talking. It was refreshing to hear Husband's thoughts put into words. It hasn't ever happened much.

Many decisions were reached. Most are too private to publicise on the world wide web, I think. At the moment, we stay together. He has been told how my plans for life have changed though. He's thinking about it. At the moment said happenings aren't imminent. He is thinking about whether he can deal with where I'm going. It was decided that if he comes back to me in a few weeks, or a few months and decides he doesn't want to go where I'm going then we'll jump off that cliff when we come to it.

The epic change, that I hope will happen soon, is finding somewhere else to live. We are going to find flatmates. He's never lived with anyone except his family and now me. I'm hoping it will help him grow, to live with other people and have to take some responsibility for things instead of me just taking care of everything. Should save some money too. I love money.

He's going to try harder to come out and socialise with me and meet people. He can do anything he wants in life, he has a brain and motivation. He just needs to figure out what he wants. He said he just wants to be with me. I said that's fine, but that I want him to want more, otherwise we really will grow too far apart, and I likely will become ridden with guilt, distant and resentful.

Do Not Want.

Stay tuned, if you want to. Future posts will likely be brighter. There might be kittens. Movie reviews, thoughts on books I'm reading, music I'm listening to. The possibilities are endless. As a taster, today I cracked open Herodotus - the Histories; CD for today was Lady Gaga - Born This Way. What a strange combination.

Drama leads to blogtasticalness!

So, I was going to have this blog, and write about stuff I thought about. There's even people out there that might read it now. Maybe. You don't have to, it's a nice place to get stuff off my chest.

Anyway, there was another big earthquake and so I forgot about my blog and just was trying to survive for a while. Life got a little dramatic more recently though.

It was revealed to Husband this weekend that I'm not happy how things are at the moment. It wasn't supposed to happen the way it did. I was going to write all the things down and talk about them like an adult with him. But then a situation exploded on our weekend away with the In-laws. In a supermarket carpark in the rain no less. So all my plans went out the window and the talk happened on the fly.

We're just sitting here on the couch awkwardly now. I don't think he's going to talk about it with me. But that's part of the problem isn't it?

I'm sure there will be more for me to process here as the situation progresses. Time for food and a cigarette and an attempt to talk I guess.

Blogger almost made me cry and I'm sick of thinking I'm going to die in a fiery wreck

It was Christmas day yesterday, so needless to say this morning I was tired and hungover. Then this morning I was woken by another massive earthquake, which the geo-science folks tell us is only a 4.9 but all my stuff is on the floor and a clock is smashed and now I have to clean and can't tell the time. After that original destroy-ariffic eartthquake and subsequent 4000-plus aftershocks, I am practically a seismograph. No way this morning was a 4.9. Plus, there's been about 20 more extreme jolts since that, all of which send my poor cat to flatten herself under the nearest piece of furniture. This many aftershocks do not happen after a 4.9.

Just turned the news on, to finally find out something about what happened! Oh, well, there we go - centred right beneath the city, hence why such extreme damage from a relatively 'small' tremor.
Screw you fault line! Take away a public holiday we waited all year for largely for the strong association with awesome Boxing Day sales. Bet no-one got to spend any of their Christmas money.

I'm usually not this angry. With being so abruptly taken from my sleep this morning, I neglected my regular caffeine intake. Also, we had no power for at least an hour, so I couldn't make coffee. Then I failed to get off the couch all day. This was largely because every time I stood up another big jolt shook the ground. I became sure I was causing it and that if I just stayed put, the ground wouldn't try so desperately to keep knocking me on my ass. It hasn't worked. There's another. So I still haven't had coffee and I have a withdrawal headache.

This probably all contributed to Blogger almost making me cry. I tried to make my blog look pretty, then maybe people will read it, or it will give me an increased sense of joy, or at least there will be pretty colours and people might be distracted and think:
"Oh, there's such pretty colours here! I will follow so that I can look at all the pretty colours. Oooh, and a picture of a kitten doing crazy shit! Yeah, follow!"
First, I don't know if these are the kind of people who would say "shit." Also, I haven't decided what kind of pictures I might include. There might be kittens - you never know.
But anyway, I decided to use the 'Help' menu to tell me what to do. It didn't work, because my dashboard doesn't look like what the page that the help-subject I selected lead me to, and so I just went back and forth between the two tabs. Dashboard. Help page. Dashboard. Help page. Et cetera. Then I got choked up and just squealed "But mine doesn't look like that."
I was stopped from crying by another earthquake. They are constant surprises. Jerks. It's like there's a fault line sitting there and I bet it's omniscient and just waits until someone's doing something like getting on their new bike they got for Christmas and just when they're unbalanced and about to triumphantly find themselves straddling their bike the fault line says "Sorry buddy, I'm gonna knock you on your ass! Lolz!"

Fucking earthquakes. Because of you I'm still in my pyjamas at 6:15 watching the evening news and considering having a ham and cheese toasted sandwich for dinner because I haven't managed to get up and even be a productive enough human to get dressed, let alone shower, and un-productive humans are totally justified in having feeding for dinner that's not particularly nutritive and takes little effort.

Inspiration by Infection

So I have been thinking of creating a blog for some time now. Keeping it real seems to be the best thing to do, and tonight a real crazy situation inspired me to finally do it.

Tonight, or more specifically this afternoon I guess, Mother was admitted to the hospital for blisters. Ridiculous, no? But there are extenuating circumstances. You see, Mother has Diabetes. She got said blisters and because of complications arising from said disease, did not know she had them and they have become infected. So badly that she is on IV antibiotics.

Sister, closely followed by Father, both called me to update me on what was happening - I don't live in the same city you see. I couldn't even think of what to say to either of them. I started reading my sister a particularly hilarious post about a microwave perhaps to distract her from her upset? More likely because I felt more engaged by the microwave analysis than the fact that Mother is in the hospital. Am I a bad human?

The one thing I did think to say to them was to please let Mother know that the parcel full of chocolate-y goodness she so kindly sent to Husband and myself for Christmas has been driving around in a delivery van all day, in 28 degree (Celsius) heat. The company guarantees delivery to residences by 5pm on delivery day, so I want her to know as I know she will be suitably outraged by our lack of candy.

The other thing I ponder is whether Mother did this on purpose. I really don't believe so and evidence to support this belief follows...

1. She can't feel her feet, and thus the blisters on it.
2. Due to recent surgery, she can't see her feet, and thus the blisters on it.
3. She already has enough health problems so I don't expect she would willingly add to this.
4. She had a podiatrist appointment lined up for this week and when she called to confirm, the podiatrist's receptionist informed her they had no record of her appointment, or of her as a patient (where she has been going for 5 years).

Sister seems to feel the opposite, that is, this was on purpose.
I think I might blame the podiatrist for this wonderful piece of pre-christmas family upset. Blaming seems like a sufficiently good human thing to do, and I am worried about whether I am a good one.