Brains!: Cicada Diaries

This Blog

My blog could be considered a dangerous thing. I don't think it is. Everything I write is completely honest. Some posts are commentary, some posts are stories, some are boring, some are fun. Most often it's a window into the part of my subconscious that cannot be communicated verbally. It's meant to be the place I spill, organize and store my abstract hidden things. You can really access a lot about me through the blog, and it's partially there for that purpose. To find out the things I cannot say, and don't necessarily need to be said. But its also a tool for me, the process of writing/blogging is therapy in some sense. However, there's a lot missing. To read it, and to think that it is all of me, would be very wrong. That's why it can be misleading. A lot of people read it, and they misinterpret. No one really knows what I actually mean by a lot of the things I say, and that's not my problem. Like I said, its only there partially for the purpose of letting people into that part of me, the rest is there for me, for my subconscious to come out. To take it literally would be a dangerous thing for the reader.

Important Pieces

In that space where infinity above meets immensity below we see the first sign of a new dawn. Dark always gives way to light; for a brief moment nothing is forbidden, everything is possible. But what would we do if the light never came? Maybe we would lie down. Maybe we could go back to sleep. Maybe we could wake up. - Adbusters

The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere; they’re in each other all along. - Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273)

Adopt the pace of nature: Her secret is patience. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The poet Rilke was afraid that if he got rid of his demons, he would lose his angels as well. Of course the danger of clinging to our demons to save our angels is that our demons may well take over." - Tim Farrington

Amnesia is not knowing who one is and wanting desperately to find out. Euphoria is not knowing who one is and not caring. Ecstasy is knowing exactly who one is-and still not caring.
- Tom Robbins

4/8/11 - Last night about 30 cicadas from Brood XIX crawled out of the soil and up on to the railing of our porch. While I was sleeping, Drack watched them shed their skins and stretch their wings. This morning I went out to see the remains. Empty carcasses still attached to where they clung on and entered the last stage of their lives. Now they go on to be food, they aren't locusts, they come out to mate and die not even bothering to eat. The cicada cycle is fascinating, another thing I only knew vaguely of and now get to experience first hand. It's confusing, at first outsiders are led to believe cicadas only come out every 13 years. Logically that doesn't make any sense, it would be more of an epic and widely broadcast event if that were true. Turns out that there are a crap ton of cicada species all over the world and within some of those species are populations. Those populations come out at different intervals, they are labeled by roman numeral. This year Brood 19 of the blablah species that lives for 13-years will be singing in early May. Later more populations and different species will come out of the ground and within a few days they'll sing.

4/11/11 - I spent lunch in the park yesterday. High temps and moderate humidity and it was still brutal but I could hear one or two cicadas singing. I observed the ones crawling around on the ground around me. Most ciadas look...well they look demented. I swear I have only seen one or two cicadas that didn't look sickly and half dead. Some can't break out of their shells, others find their wings are crumpled. Some flop around on their backs for hours. A lot fall off of whatever they're attached to consistently. Considering they're only really come out of the ground to mate, they don't necessarily have to be the Olympian's of the bug world. Which might be why there are so many of them, most will be eaten before they lay their eggs. Granted I have yet to find anything scientific to back up my theory, but that seems to be the general feeling of most folks around here.