Two dreams of my grandmother

My grandmother died three years ago, right after New Year's Day. She had been in and out of the hospital in the year preceding her death, and I had not seen her for several months. Following her demise, I had two dreams that I will recount here.

My first dream was an attempt at lucid dreaming. When she was still alive, she would let me go through her closet for clothes I wanted, and, once I finally got to sleep, I saw myself doing just that. Unfortunately, this dream was interrupted by someone blasting music outside.

I do not remember the second dream well, as most of it had nothing to do with her, but I do recall the part right before I awoke; she appeared in front of me and told me how proud she was of me.

Though I am no spiritual person, I believe that these dreams were her way of saying goodbye to me.

I can, only in my youth, lament

I can, only in my youth, lament the slowness of the years.

I can, only in my youth, regret

adulthood growing near.

How hard is it to understand

that sand continues flowing,

and that the loss of innocence

shows no symptom of slowing.

Scarcely can I comprehend what

past my eighteenth lies;

How I’ll mourn, and how I dread

the day my parents die.

Greatly cherished memories

grow further by the day;

most notably the moment I

accepted I was gay.

First it’ll be a month since that,

the next time it’ll be two;

then it’ll be a full decade

completely behind you.

Often I feel proud of just how

far that I have come,

but wonder if it’ll matter once

I’m buried, dead and gone.

I recall the bygone days

I liked to play with toys.

But now I cannot stand to be

a little girl or boy.

Soon I’ll have to leave this stage

of fantasies and fears,

the friends and hopes that symbolize

these fleeting teenage years.

There'll be a time when I’ll blow out

the last candle I will.

And after that, the birthday gifts

will all plummet to nil.

Then I’ll be a massive fool

to write a Christmas list,

it’ll be all my own duty

to work, and buy my gifts.

I wonder if I still will want

a lovely house and wife.

I wonder if I’m damned to live

a greatly troubled life.

I wonder if I really know

the person that I am;

I wonder if to find that out

is something that I can.

Letters underneath the bed

Run your fingers down her hips, 

plant a kiss upon her lips; 

for the glamour of tonight
should be sought before
it comes right out of sight —
when you come back to racour
within your house’s door.

Letters underneath the bed,
gifts that came just from a “friend”;
your wife smells never-smelt perfume
she knows she never bought:
“Lady, don’t you dare assume
there's some girl I’ve recent got,
for I’d rather than that rot.”

Sleeping in your love’s abode,
the one that is your favored home:
handsome is she when she sleeps —
her beauty makes you almost cry —
but you recall what both you keep
from your wives’ prying eyes:
a full-of-shame disguise.

Dawn raises its morning feathers;
your wife has surely found the letter.
Your life just falls apart —
what else is there to do
than excavate your heart?
Soon all know that it’s true —
you know that that’s your cue.

You call your love to come —
your wife has left the home.
“My life has gone to waste
I’m sure that yours has, too.
So why not we make haste
to elope, me and you,
to a land beyond the moon?”

She without a hunch agreed:
you were to do a final deed,
for both your times had come
to make a last return
to the universal home —
in coffin or in urn,
and buried, perhaps burned.

She prepared for you the gun;
“A word — before I come undone —
to this ruthless, pious earth:
I’ll be a great deal better off
with my love of greatest worth.”
Without either a flinch or cough
her head completely blasted off.

Soon were you to follow suit —
in your head the shotgun shoot —
and soon were you to die.
She gladly led you down to Hell
where the both of you could fly.
The bullets seemed to serve you well,
and neither of your wives can tell.

Delusion of a crimson fire

The captain saw a crimson fire;
He called his young men and their guns —
he knew them rather trusty ones —
and shot right at the air.
The sight rendered the whole crew blind,
the fire costing them their minds,
as warmth engulfed as if a pyre
and left them standing there.

“It surely is the Devil’s play
or demons and their schemes.
It cannot be, to me it seems,
a close to natural force.”
When all the captain’s lead ran out,
he to his crew began to shout
“And must I say, with great dismay
that we have lost our course.”

The crew in loyal creed agreed
their end was close in sight
and all then planned to spend the night
with one final hurray.
They all went down to cheer, before
their God led them to Heaven’s door;
and then they went to bed to sleep
but by morning were awake.

The captain brought the ship to shore
and saw the sky a cloudy grey
“That surely is the Devil’s play,
though I am still alive!”
He summoned all the crew to deck
and wondered why they weren’t dead.
Then he heard the fire roar
and saw its dying light.

They disembarked to find out what
had caused the flame and warmth.
There they saw something afar
had caught somehow aflame.
The captain saw a tower burning;
the smoke had spread, as if so yearning
to keep on Earth its ashy run
and drive people insane.

They spent much time contriving stories —
they thought it Satan’s fault —
and blamed the beast for man’s assault
against the vacant tower.
Within themselves they imbued fear
that this was not an arson mere,
but a brutal rape of Godly glory
by some Satanic power.

The captain told his men the end was nigh:
“I tell you all, I’ve never feared,
till this day, the end was near
and so I bid farewell.”
He with his men returned to ship,
took the pistol off his hip,
embraced his fellow men goodbye,
and with a bang then fell.

The mind's eye

When it’s hours past the start of night
and you can hardly see,
but you can see your paradise
hover beyond your reach;
on your own you’ve made this place
to escape the real world’s unkind face,
but the real world makes an awful slight
and makes the new land dark as night.

You can almost hear the sound
of ocean water splash at you
and see the grains of ecru sand
mix with the ocean blue;
but the real world early comes
with the noise of urban homes,
and drags you, screaming, down
to your life back on the ground.

The place was never there —
that fact, you’ve always known —
the wind that stroked your hair
had never truly blown.
Regardless how it fleeting seemed;
it was nothing but a mere half-dream
that let your mind’s eye wander where
you know that no-one else was there.

The markings on the beach

I walk along the beach
and mark upon the sand.
I wonder if the wind
will sweep it to the sea —
the indent of my hand —
for no one else to find.

I fear this thought the most —
I see more, looking back,
from many bygone days.
But I therefore propose
that most stay not intact
but are, too, swept away.

Is there really any point
in drawing on the sand
if the beach is not to last?
For we cannot avoid
the washing of the land
and of our now and past.

A hundred years from now,
a boy visits the beach
and sees the marking on the sand.
He naïvely wonders how
these marks evade the sea,
and wants to try his hand.

That is, to me, enough
to want to mark the sand
before the angels call;
within my mortal cuff
I inscribe with my hand
to give to one or all.

The Deathbed Boy

The boy lay sick in bed
on a balmy summer’s day;
though his sister went to play,
Death loomed above his head.
He asked his mother that same day
what made him deathly ill,
and why his Sister frolicked, still,
while he wasted away.

He looked out from his window
to the grassy field outside;
at his sister's sight he dared to cry
that he had reached his low.
His mother gave the answer long:
“It’s mere fortune of fate;
it does not choose nor does it wait,
it knows not right or wrong.

“Though such a young man as you are
ought not to have this plight,
fate is bound to drop its might
without a thought or care”.
He fully heard his mother
and so turned his head to nod,
although he thought it odd
that fate declined another.

His skin clung tightly to his bone
with nothing inbetween —
one with working eyes could glean
that he was not for long.
He stared out through his vacant eyes
— empty voids in rings of blue —
with pensive face, as if he knew
that he could always die.

“What point is there in living
without leaving but a trace:
when I with Death meet face-to-face,
I haven't done a giving.
I'll be a wholly useless matter
in half a decade's time;
I'll be less than worth a dime
before I've clumb the ladder.

“I’ll hardly be a person
past ‘the sickly boy who died’.
Will I be known on either side
I'll go to when I'm gone?
Who’ll sweep by once it's my time:
Satan in his wretched wagon,
or angels in sweet chariot?
And will they come after I die?

“Are there really sides immortal
as you, my mama, say;
or do the dead rest in their graves
in an endless slumber restful?
Where do all the souls and minds
for babies like my sisters come?
Are all these new souls taken from
the dead after they die?”

Then he tired laid his head,
closed his eyes
in wait to die,
and sunk into the bed.
Soon the father came back home
to prepare for him a grave;
but he and all the others craved
to know where he had gone.

It was to them a sad affair;
but afterward the mourners went
to accept the dead boy and forget.
In a few years' time nobody cared.
I suppose that that's the fact of death.

The Feline and the Rodent

There exists a multitude of sides to every story,
whether it’s a fairy tale or exceptionally gory.
Let me tell you all about a predator and prey —
the Feline and the Rodent, more specifically to say.

Aimless does the little Rodent wander, small and grey;
it’s too dumb and self-concerned to know itself as prey.
Thanks to this it gives the Feline plenty time and slack
to come out like a shadow but then make its grand attack.

From the Feline’s cavity does the Rat blood come a-pouring —
those shiny, spiky teeth of its can surely do a goring!
The bloodied Rat — a pity — lies between the Feline’s teeth;
as the Cat prepares the Rodent for a sad life underneath.

The Cat, however, tires and grows bored with its new kill;
it decides to walk the streets to find another fill.
The Cat in all its hunting prowess finds another prey,
which this time turns to look at it and damn itself to say:

“Why do you, the Felines, dare to persecute my kind?
Are you sadistic animals or simply off your minds?”
The Feline hardly heard those words and what the Rodent said;
it pounced upon the Rodent and then left it there for dead.

Rapping of the drum

Da dum da dum da dum —
The rapping of a drum.

Lying in my chamber bed,
between the wake and dream
I heard what I perceived to be
the rapping of a drum.

I could hear the women sing,
men and angels too;
in my head flashed colors new
as if in Heaven's ring.

The women sang with banshee cries,
according to the drum;
perhaps they cried aloud to some
to comfort as they died.

Da dum da dum da dum —
The rapping of a drum.

The banging of the drum that night
coaxed my eyes to close
and dragged me from the world I know
to magic, awe, and fright.

The town was oddly empty
yet its streets were oddly clean.
The windows had the certain sheen
of water in the stream.

I wandered to the hours pass —
the houses stone and clay
that called me back to bygone days —
to make the slumber last.

The morning called for me to wake
and for my nightly fast to break,
although the drum had stopped its beat
and quiet reigned vicinity.

I checked up on my sister's bed
and to my sorrow found her dead.
A bullet had been through her head —
the banging of a gun.

I walked outside to see the town;
men and boys — soldiers — lay down.
Beside them lay their rifles too,
and also gals and girls in blue.

Hesperiidae

Onto flowers skippers fly

with spheres of black and beady eyes
that have seen a thousand years
and yet have shed no poignant tear.
Fiery wings with chipper flight
win against the jet and kite;
for no creature of man compares
to fabric weaved from Nature’s hair.

A horseman and his steed

With his steed the horseman comes
up the craggy hills —
up those grassy hills.

With the man the steed does run fast
to the forest land —
to the unknown land.

But man and horse, they hardly know
where the hills will lead them to.

The horseman sees a dog on foot
and shoots it in the head —
in the dog’s angry head.

The dog, unfazed, kept its pursuit
to bite the horseman’s leg —
the horseman’s bony leg.

The horseman, still, refused to fall
onto the dirty ground —
the taken, well-tread ground.

He and his steed sleep well tonight
atop their makeshift beds —
their crooked, straw-made beds.

The dog does keep itself in wait
with hunger in its eyes —
the beady, vicious eyes.

The horseman, who could not have known
that he and horse were not alone.

The sun, bright white, on land does shine
its rays onto the sea —
the abyss of the sea.

The horseman rose as did the sun
though blood poured from his leg —
his burden of a leg.

Horseman went to mount his steed;
beside them walked the dog —
the greedy, ragged dog.

Horseman fell onto the rocks
when the dog attacked the steed —
the faithful, fragile steed.

The steed did fall below the man
onto the jagged rocks —
the steep fall of the rocks.

The dog reflects, its face content,
on what it had just done —
what it’d again done.

Man and steed, a long way down
go underneath the sea —
the abyss of the sea.

The forest to which they tried to go
does remain untouched —
eternally untouched.

Less than human beings

Soldiers raped the Vietnamese

and left them on the road;
they weren’t women, weren’t children,
but products of their foe.

They fired at the babies’ heads
and mangled girls’ remains;
senselessly they raped and killed
the souls without restraint.

To you and I this seems far-fetched:
what man could do such things?
It’s easy when he thinks of them
as less than human beings.

Wonder how the Nazis
could so surely kill the Jews?
They saw them not as men and women,
but vermin and refuse.

“Jews don’t cry, but let out
filthy water from their eyes;
they drop at death onto the ground
like rats and roaches die.”

Then they take the bodies to be
buried in mass graves;
discarding, nary a tear,
the skeletal remains.

To you and I this seems far-fetched:
what man could do such things?
It’s easy when he thinks of them
as less than human beings.

When they go home
to greet their wives,
they act like you and me —
at the moment, men at home, not of atrocity.

If they get caught they claim that
they were “doing as we’re told”;
instead of rot they may
run free and merrily grow old.

Neither are they inhuman
nor mythologic beasts;
they live next door and at the core
are just like you and me.

The Devil's Dogs

Satan, in a man’s disguise,
went up to check on Earth;
appallingly he saw it lacked
an evil of much worth.

Returned to Hell and thought surely
“that must be made to change;
I shall create a horrid beast
to terrorise its range”.

At its birth he saw its worth —
it caused his hand to bleed;
it mauled the hounds and growled at him
and reaped the Hellish seed.

He looked and liked his new creation
“They’ve never been among”,
He thought to himself, in contemplation,
“I’ll call the beast a dog!”

The dog soon had a female mate
with which to spread its kind;
the Devil set them loose on Earth
to see what prey they'd find.

The dogs maddened the earthly men;
“Somebody get the chains!”
Till the women’s tender hearts would
see them look for prey.

They took them in as refugees
and gave them all the food.
They tried to make them residents
and train them to be good.

Dogs by nature have the urge —
the ceaseless need to feast;
and soon were they to prove
themselves as horrifying beasts.

A young girl knelt before a dog
to dress it in her lace;
But it in instinct snapped at her
and savored flesh of face.

A shepherd left his flock alone
to have a spot of tea;
At his return he saw that
he was missing all his sheep.

A mother poor left on a plate
a piece of bread to carve;
the dog wanted to help itself,
so all her kids would starve.

The Devil proudly saw his work
and saw what they had done:
“The dogs have taken twenty-four;
I hope they’re having fun”.

The people gave the Devil's dogs
unneeded love and play.
They didn't fear and didn't flee, and
neither did they pray.

A woman dressed the hell-dog’s wound
using a linen band;
She took it in and bathed its fur
although it bit her hand.

It rained one day, it poured that day;
The dogs were doing fine —
scarcely do they feel the rain —
but folks led them inside.

The evening came, the dogs ran loose
and were the fools confused;
till the dogs flooded the roads
and broke to them the news:

One by one the dogs did maul
the people of the town;
Not a crew of twenty men
could put the monsters down.

Soon — within an hour's time —
would all the folks be dead;
the dogs would not, nary a thought
within their ugly heads.

Satan laughed with hearty glee,
“Killed men, not only sheep!”;
poured himself a glass of wine,
and put himself to sleep.

Sea in which we intertwine

Sea of fishes, sea of mine,

sea in which we intertwine.
Be it barren or be it fair,
we all sail to it from everywhere.

Does it scald, or does it freeze?
Is to swim a misery?
Do we, the seamen, return ashore
or remain in it forevermore?

Does it scald for sinners, freeze for saints?
Do those who dive get whipped with pain?
A waking paradise or an abyssal sleep?
No end to the secrets the sea does keep.

Souls and eyes

Does a cockroach

see through its eyes

as I see through mine?

And do I see

like the fishes in the ocean,

or the skippers in the zinnia,

or the eagles seeking prey?

Do their poor souls humanlike cry out

from simple brains?

Do your thoughts bleed?

Do your thoughts bleed

from head to paper?

Do they bleed with prose

as they do with poetry?

Do they come gushing

like a gunshot wound,

or trickling like a cut?

What they know

Writers write what they know.

When I write that fact does show;

I've lived for only sixteen years,

and I write about myself.

On poetry

I was a terrible poet

in my pre-adolescent years.

Blindly following tradition —

writing whatever words rhymed

rather than what 

nature made me want to write.

Why did I write poetry at a time when 

I did not understand it?

Ask my twelve-year-old self 

why one writes poetry

and I could not answer.

Ask me now

the same question,

and I would respond

“to express what

cannot be expressed

as powerfully in prose”.

Blending beans

Today I found that if you blend canned kidney beans it has a nutty taste but the texture of hummus. I will try it also with chickpeas.

Fitting in vs. belonging

Minutes before the publication of this post I wrote this for my SEL class.

One belongs to a group when they (1) can connect with them emotionally and (2) feel free to behave authentically when with said group. This is different from “fitting in”, which is deliberately altering one’s behavior to appeal more to a group. If someone tries to “fit in” they, subconsciously or not, think that the group will reject or ostracize them if they act as they naturally would. People usually are fine with differing in interests from their friends if they feel belonging.




Because “fitting in” is contrived behavior, the friendships made under it to are necessarily more tenuous and superficial than ones resulting from belonging. One decides that they belong with a group because they feel understood by and comfortable with them; they decide that they fit in because they’re acting in a way the group finds unobjectionable.

Tofu

 You can make fairly convincing(texture-wise) yoghurt using silken tofu(the one that I used was Mori-Nu Extra Firm) by adding a block to a blender with 0.5-1 cup of water and blending it thoroughly. It would've, however, tasted better had I added a banana or peanut butter.

At.

At four years old my mind was a big blur. Cognitively, I was slow to develop, and I don't think I thought at all until I turned five or six. I do remember daydreaming about cartoon characters. My first clear memory was when I was an infant, and the doctor who was examining me told me not to pee on him; my second — at two or three — was when I pulled a TV over myself, and my father and some other man had to rescue me(the image of them after they got me from under there is burnt into my head); my third — at three or four — was of my father chastising me for wetting myself in a convenience store(got a good smack to the rear for that). We moved houses shortly thereafter(though not, I think, because of that incident).

At twelve I thought myself a philosopher and a writer, and fantasised about becoming immortalised as one of the greats, after stumbling upon the works of such philosophers as Bertrand Russell and being allowed unrestricted access to writing implements. Though my reading ability has been advanced for the past several years if my test scores(which I think attest more to Californian children being generally stupid and aliterate than to my literary prowess) are to be trusted, I read Wuthering Heights in early 2020 and didn't comprehend a line of it. I couldn't yet infer the big picture of a novel from its smaller events and dialogue. At that time I did not realise how immature I was, thinking myself to be on par with an adult, and I thought that prose stylism and Irene Iddesleigh levels of circumlocution, rather than clear communication, made a good writer. I even handwrote in the slanted cursive people from centuries past did, except I grossly exaggerated it; much of my writing from 2020 is illegible to me today.

At almost sixteen, time passes quickly; when I was ten, watching 5 minutes count down seemed like an eternity, now it's a blip. I am more focused on myself and on the real world(nature, politics, history) than on the abstract; the opposite was true when I was twelve. I've begun reading Jane Eyre and realised that there's no way I could've understood this had I read it three or four years ago. I wager that in a few years’ time I'll think the same about my sixteen-year-old self as I do currently about my twelve-year-old self.

This morning

I awoke at 04:00(I'm not sure what woke me up, as my alarm was set for 05:30 and I'd gone to bed at midnight) and decided to stay awake and read. It'd been a few years since I'd gotten up so early, and I wonder why I stopped; the darkness and silence of the early morning, and the knowledge you have plenty of time to do whatever before the day begins, impart to you a sense of serenity and bliss difficult to capture with words.

Why do I write?

I write for one reason, and one reason only — to permanentise my thoughts' place in the world. In my head there's a storm of thoughts, some of which worth preserving, that will be lost forever if I die without writing them down. There's no point in not giving the world my strange perspective while I can. When I write I notice that there exists no writer I've read whose work reads similarly to mine, who structures their writing the same way that I do; I am slightly self-conscious of this fact, as I fear that I do not measure up to said writers, but sometimes, like right now, I ask myself a question whose answer I know very well: would I rather be distinctive and odd, or be a run-of-the-mill writer whose work prospective publishers roll their eyes at before throwing into the trash and moving on to the next nondescript item? I've had experiences — some I wish to share, but most I would rather not — unique to myself; I cannot let these experiences be lost once I am no longer here to tell them. I do not care about being “good” at writing as much as I do about preserving my thoughts, opinions, and experiences.

Memory of my grandmother

 My grandmother died three years ago, the day after 2021 began. I have many memories of her, and one I feel currently compelled to share is when I was staying at her house. She told me that there was a long word “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and sang to me “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, if you say it fast enough you might become explosive”. 

Man, I miss her.

Publication

 Not all or even most of my writings need be read by eyes other than my own. In my notes are several stories and drafts that for a reason the public eye will never know. Writing is a medium of creation and, like all media of creation, has various purposes, the only one universal to all media being to express thought in a tangible, permanent form. 

When I write I do it for different, oft-overlapping purposes — to organise my ideas, to record my mundane activities and musings, to please myself, and to practice writing itself. I have it that my writings created for the latter two purposes remain private, but often publish those created for the former two. The reason is simple — my individual writings serve, to me, different purposes.

The thought that unpublished works are wasted works bothers me often; but then I remind myself that I can always write more and publish whatever of that I feel is worthy of publication.

Breakfast

Made and ate breakfast (asparagus and broccoli salad with dressing comprising oat milk and peanut flour). Used 10 asparagus stalks(they were thin and had little volume after being cut), 3 cups of broccoli, and 1/2 cup peanut flour and 3/4 cup oat milk. The dressing was good, though somewhat liquidy(causing much of it to fall to the bottom of the bowl); next time I will use 1/2 cup oat milk and/or 3/4 cup peanut flour. The vegetables were perfect with the dressing.

Finally went for a walk after it stopped raining

Stopped raining last night. Finally had the chance to go on one of my usual walks, which I normally take every day to pass time before I make myself dinner. This walk was for an hour and thirty minutes. In the hours after rain ceases the sky is at its best(in my opinion) appearance; it is covered wholly by a nigh-impenetrable sheet of grey clouds, and the air runs cold.

Writing.com

 Yesterday I created a writing.com account(https://www.writing.com/main/portfolio/view/stfrancisii). I will still post my essays on here, though I will be more active on that site due to its community. If you want to sign up as well, you can do so at https://www.Writing.Com?rfrid=stfrancisii.

Insects in my backyard

There are several insect species that I encounter regularly in my backyard. Amongst these are such butterflies as fiery skippers, gulf fritillaries, painted and West Coast ladies, and cabbage whites; Western honey bees; Asian, seven-spotted, and convergent lady beetles; various species of hoverfly; and scentless plant bugs.

Fiery skippers (Hylephila phyleus) frequent the lantana and are so far the only skipper butterfly that shows up consistently(I have seen Eufala(Lerodea eufala) and umber(Lon melane) skippers, though nowhere near as often). In San Bernardino at least, the males are generally bright orange-yellow and the females a pale tan. They are very friendly, and have a few times crawled onto my hand upon my extending it toward them. This year they first appeared in late May, reached their prominence between July and September, and vanished by October.

I see gulf fritillaries(Dione vanillae), which also enjoy the lantana, almost year-round. I would crudely estimate their wingspan to be 7 centimetres. They are in both sexes bright orange, with white black-bordered dots on the middle margins of the tops of either forewing. They are prone to flying away should you approach them too suddenly.

I do not see painted(Vanessa cardui) or West Coast(Vanessa annabella) ladies as frequently as I do the aforementioned butterflies, but during the winter and spring months they appear frequently enough for me to notice. They have a wingspan of approximately 5-6 centimetres, though I have not measured them, and are distinguishable from each other in the coloration close to the outer corner of the forewing — V. cardui has, about one-third of the way horizontally from the very corner of the wing, a white area, while V. annabella has in that location an orange area.

And how could I forget the cabbage white(Pieris rapae)? native to Europe, they are invasive in the United States. They are moderately sized and I would gauge their wingspan to be about four centimetres.

Western honey bees(Apis mellifera) and Asian lady beetles(Harmonia axyridis) are both invasive in the United States. Western honey bees(which are native to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East) and were, starting in the seventeenth century, introduced by humans into other continents. Asian lady beetles are similar in this respect, though their introduction occurred in the late twentieth century. I see both of them year-round. The honey bees are attracted to the lantana(as well as to the Oxalis pes-caprae that pops up in January and stays till March) and have a propensity for flying into the backyard swimming pool and becoming stuck till I can save them.

The convergent lady beetles(Hippodamia convergens) are quite small — I would estimate their length to be only 4 millimetres on average. I have recently been seeing a preponderance of both them and of seven-spotted lady beetles(Coccinella septempunctata). Most convergent lady beetles I have seen have six spots on each wing, though I have seen a few with only two on each.

The two species of hoverflies I can confirm have appeared in my backyard are Allograpta obliqua and Scaeva affinis. They are generally rather small(rarely more than 6 millimetres in length), though in March I saw one that was about a centimetre long or perhaps a bit larger. One can easily differentiate between males and females by observing their eyes; males have the eyes connected at the top of their heads while females do not.

Scentless plant bugs(family Rhopalidae) measure about 3-5 millimetres. The only species that I have recorded thus far is Liorhyssus hyalinus, known according to its Bugguide page as the hyaline grass bug. The only situations in which I normally see them are when I have to save them from the pool.

Why I became a vegetarian

On December 23rd of 2023 I decided to become a vegetarian, to eliminate my consumption of eggs, milk, and honey, and to limit my dairy consumption as much as I, in practice, could; for the past four years I was a pescetarian(meaning that I ate fish but not other types of animal). I made the decision to go vegetarian for both my health and for the welfare of marine life. Here I will explain my rationale for doing so in relation to my interest in nature and entomology, and I will also consider why it is socially acceptable to consume animal products in the first place.

If you do not know me, then I am a lover of insects; entomology is the primary trait of my personality, and the one subject that I am genuinely, permanently passionate about. I appreciate insects both scientifically and empathetically; to see a fly struggle in a body of water is, to me at least, heart-rending. As a middle-schooler(which was not too long ago — I am fifteen now) I once had to use the bathroom, yet when I went to do so there was a geometer moth perched in the doorway, rendering closing the door without crushing it impossible; instead of killing it or even shooing it out I held my urine for an hour or so until the moth had flown out of the doorway. In my backyard there is a large swimming pool into which such creatures as bees, flies, and ladybirds are apt to fall and get stuck; I will stop my daily walks purely to save them.

Until recent months I had rarely considered why I expressed so much empathy toward insects but so little toward the fishes I formerly felt so content consuming as though they had never been creatures with souls. It is to me obvious that insects do not wish to be crushed or doused with pesticides, so why should I be able to enjoy sardines knowing that they had been taken from their natural home — the ocean — just so they could end up on my plate? I once tolerated eating shrimp(which are crustaceans) despite the fact that they are more similar to insects than they are different; both shrimp and insects belong to the phylum Arthropoda, though they diverge taxonomically at the subphylum rank. I adore spiders, isopods(which are also crustaceans), and scorpions, which are all non-insect arthropods. Part-by-part, they are all rather similar; they all have exoskeletons, eyes, legs, and nervous systems(albeit simple ones). Thus, it is inconsistent that I would eat one but love the rest.

I may compare this to the fact that, in the Western world, people have no issue eating pigs, cows, or chickens, but are appalled at the concept of eating dogs, cats, or their fellow men and women. They are all mammals, and mammals are, once considered to be sums of their parts, all more similar than different. I could extend this to animals as a whole; insects, fishes, mammals, and birds all have eyes, nervous systems, survival instincts, mouthparts with which they feed themselves, the knowledge of whether they are at this moment hungry, thirsty, or injured, reproductive organs with which they propagate their species, and the drive to find a mate and reproduce.

Whether through the air or through the water, all animals breathe the same oxygen. Their outer appearance, whether they audibly scream or not, how intelligent they seem to be by anthropocentric standards, the type of body parts they have in order to be able to move, and what humans decided they were made for are wholly irrelevant in determining their inherent worth as animals. All animals have the same goals — to (1) live and to (2) carry on their species.

Humans, as a group, value other animals only when they can be exploited in some way; we keep pets to make us happy, artificially inseminate cows to produce milk for us, hunt innocent wildlife so that we have trophies to bring home, ride horses so that they can take us places, breed chickens and turkeys so that they can be slaughtered for our meat, allow honeybees to outcompete native pollinators so that we have honey, and remove fish, crabs, lobsters, and shrimp from the seas so that their remains can feed us. The majority of people will kill cockroaches, wasps, flies, moths, spiders, scorpions, rats, and mice simply because (1) they think them inconveniences, even if they can be easily relocated and pose no real threat, and (2) they see no benefit from exploiting them.

This mindset is why it is socially acceptable to consume animal products; people can simply believe that animals are, in being slaughtered for meat or in having their milk taken from them, fulfilling their duties placed upon them by people; this is further reinforced by the fact that livestock are bred specifically to produce products for humans. One will be called strange for having a pet cow and a monster for cooking and eating a dog; this is because the former involves keeping what society has deemed livestock, destined to be turned into meat, as a pet, and the latter involves slaughtering and consuming an animal people have been conditioned to cherish and feel empathy for; in more abstract terms, certain types of animals have different "roles" assigned to them by humans.

My rationale for eliminating honey from my diet has less to do with welfare and more to do with conservation. For those unaware, most beekeepers use bees of the species Apis mellifera(European honey bee) to produce honey; these bees are not native to North America, but to Europe, Asia, and Africa, and are considered invasive in North America, Australia, and New Zealand. Apis mellifera consume from plants nectar that native pollinators also require; compete with native fauna for nesting locations; and pollinate nonnative plants that native pollinators neglect, and that will divert resources from native plants. To purchase honey is to support beekeepers in continuing to propagate nonnative bees that harm native pollinators.

Animals are not ours to be exploited. The love that people have for some animals despite the coldness they have toward others is morally inconsistent. Mammals — and animals on a larger scale— are more similar to each other than they are different. If people as a whole were more open to evaluating their consumption of animal products in relation to their beliefs regarding animals, then fewer people would be eating meat.

Recipe for apple oatmeal

Had this for breakfast yesterday.

Ingredients:

1 cup old-fashioned oats

1 cup oat milk

1 apple

3 tbsp peanut flour

Directions:

Put oats into bowl.

Cut apple into chunks. Place in same bowl as oats.

Put oat milk into pot, uncovered. Boil on high.

When oat milk comes to a boil, set it to medium heat and pour contents of bowl into pot. Add peanut flour. Peanut flour may be omitted in case of allergy.

Stir until oats have absorbed most of the oat milk. Serve.

Serves 1

610 kcal per serving

Went to the library book sale

Yesterday(2024/01/20) I went to the Norman F. Feldheym Library in San Bernardino — there was a book sale occurring there — and bought seventeen books, whose titles follow:

1. California's Wilderness Areas: The Complete Guide by George Wuerthner

2. The Audubon Society Nature Guides: Pacific Coast by Bayard H. McConnaughey and Evelyn McConnaughey

3. The Beachcomber's Guide to Seashore Life of California by J. Duane Sept

4. Fire, Faults, and Floods: A Road & Trail Guide Exploring the Origins of the Columbia River Basin by Marge and Ted Mueller

5. Day Hiker's Guide to Southern California by John McKinney

6. A Guidebook to the Southern Sierra Nevada and Exploring California Byways IV by Russ Leadabrand

7. Community Policing: Contemporary Readings by Geoffrey P. Albert and Alex R. Piquero

8. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

9. Wonderful Town, which is a collection of stories from The New Yorker

10. Language of Computer Publishing by Dr Donald J. Brenner

11. The Power of Public Ideas by Robert B. Reich

12. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

13. Stoic Studies by A. A. Long

14. The Oedipus Cycle by Sophocles

15. Mind and Cosmos by Robert G. Colodny et al.

16. The Odyssey of KP2 by Terrie M. Williams

A drawing: Psychedelic grasshopper

I created this drawing — which I have titled "Psychedelic grasshopper" — last night for a school art project, but I loved it so much that I may as well post it here. Ink used for outlines and everything that is not the shading within the grasshopper. The reference photograph for the grasshopper can be found here; the grass is wholly a product of my imagination.

Dream 2024/01/10: An infestation

 This early morning I dreamt a dream that has left my skin crawling even after awakening.

Firstly I began noticing strange insects — large brown antlike ones and small yellow roachlike ones that I could not identify, along with a few moths — all over the walls of my bedroom. The blankets on my bed appeared to have invisible(for the time being) creatures crawling erratically underneath them. Because you and I become very irrational in our dreams, I thought nothing of the growing infestation; in fact, I went to the library, got a library card, and read digitised books and online articles at the computer.

When I came home, the infestation could not have been worse; my bed, every blanket on which now shivered and twitched constantly, now was populated by what appeared to be mushy, greatly deformed miniature rubber duckies, many of which had holes in place of faces. These duckies were not the ones wriggling about the blankets, though; looking closer I remarked unplaceable insects squirming about in the bed as well.

I allowed it to continue without saying a word to my mother; soon the populations of all the aforementioned creatures increased exponentially, as well as the deformities in the rubber duckies. There was constant movement of my blankets and pillows that made me question whether my bedding had a life of its own now. That was until two or three days later; I checked my books and found my dictionary having had a huge bite-shaped chunk — I say that because I could tell that there were too many and too perfectly rounded teeth for it to originate from a mammal — taken out of it. 

I went to the kitchen and told my mother, who quipped "So you really just wanted to see insects, huh?". When I led her to my room to show her, the situation had deteriorated even further; the blankets were now also teeming with little mice. I checked my phone and searched what termites looked like, because "termites" were throughout the dream the foremost thought in my head. Instead of what termites actually looked like, I was shown a cute crambid snout moth with white, brown, and red wings.

At that moment I awoke. Even writing all this made me squirm with disconcertment.

The beginning

Hello. This is Syrphid Society, my blog. The official blog for Insectopedia is at insectopedian.blogspot.com. Here I will make posts about my findings regarding insects, my insect-related tangents, and miscellaneous thoughts. There I will exclusively post information and updates regarding Insectopedia.