Jane of All Coats

I just gave away my vintage faux leopard coat to an old friend. I hadn't even looked at it or thought about it in months, but when I got it out and inspected it and hung it up to air out, I admired it and thought, "what the hell am I doing? I'll never find another leopard coat this good". But, I had already promised it away and I didn't wear it anymore and it's the kind of special coat that deserves to be loved and worn and shown off and ogled over and talked about. Its a really good coat. 

I bought it from an old lady at an antique swap meet while I was in college. I believe she was the original owner. She informed me that I needed brown gloves to go with it (which I also bought from her) and she told me about how "in her day" ladies didn't go out of the house without gloves and sometimes they would cut the tips off of their gloves so they could still use their fingers while wearing them. 

Once, while wearing it, someone taunted me about wearing fur, but I couldn't respond to the person because of the situation. I was irritated because not only was I absolutely against wearing fur but I was a vegan animal rights activist at the time. I was inspired to make a patch that said "genuine fake" and sew it on the arm. That's the history of the leopard coat. 

I have noticed that as I think about this and some other coats I've worn, they all have memorable stories to go with them. There was the blue velvet coat. It was royal blue velvet that was quilted and hung down to my ankles. It buttoned up the front and had two flap-over pockets and a simple short collar. It flared out a bit in the back and was lined with pink satin. I was probably just out of high school when my good friend Samantha told me about this amazing coat she saw at a vintage store. She described it and I fell in love with the idea of it before I even saw it. The thing is, although she wanted it too, it wasn't really her style. But it totally fit my goth/punk/weirdo look at the time. I ended up going to the store and buying it first. She was upset for about 5 minutes, but let it go. 

I don't know why I did that. Why I went out and bought this unique item that my best friend wanted. Was I a horrible selfish person? Was I just reacting to some innate shopping addict gene I got from my mom? Or was it destined to be mine - all I had to do was buy it first? 

Over the years, the pink lining ripped in a few places and the pockets had to be reinforced with safety pins (because I've never been much of a seamstress) and finally, last year, I gave that one away to someone I know too. 

I also remember this black velvet coat that my friend John wore just after high school. It was almost like a casual dress jacket and always smelled of vanilla. I used to steal that coat whenever I could, and I think it became quite an object of manipulation at one point. It inspired me to wear vanilla scented perfumes, which I still do to this day. 

This brings me to my current coat. It's a black fuzzy button up coat that goes above my knees, with a long wide collar, two pockets and a strap across the back. It's kind of like a pea coat meets a stuffed animal. I got this one at a Naked Lady Party, which I need to explain because it's a lot less exciting than it probably sounds. It's basically a girly get together (food, wine, and chocolate, and clothes) where everyone brings a bag of old clothes they are getting rid of. The clothes are dumped in a central pile, and the girls draw numbers and choose clothes they want. Many try on the clothes there and then to see if they want to keep them, hence "naked lady party". I saw the girl who was getting rid of the coat. She was about six inches taller and 50 pounds lighter than me, but I tried it on anyway. Somehow, it fit really well - kind of like those traveling pants that got to star in a movie. So, it needed some love (the seams were coming apart and the pockets were full of holes) and for once I found it almost effortless to fix something with a needle and thread. I made new pockets out of an old burgundy velvet shirt and it came back together like new. This is the coat I still wear and love and feel comfortable and warm in. 

Anyone have a coat story to share?

Messing with DNA

I'd like you to peruse the article below and just offer comments on that, if you have them, but I also want to add a few thoughts. So go read the article and come back. Seriously - at least browse it and then come back.

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"We are not trying to alter genes, we're just trying to swap a small proportion of the bad ones for some good ones," said Patrick Chinnery. 

Question: Isn't swap another word for alter? 

So far, 10 such embryos have been created, though they have not been allowed to develop for more than five days. 

 

I'd like to know what the religious and/or pro-life readers think of that. Personally, I think it's a shame to create life just to see if you can and then essentially destroy it because it doesn't work for you. But then again, science does that all the time. 

Though the preliminary research has raised concerns about the possibility of genetically modified babies, the scientists say that the embryos are still only primarily the product of one man and one woman.

First of all, let's cut the crap. It TOTALLY IS genetically modifying babies, however small the modification is. I'm not necessarily against using gene therapy, which this is very similar to. I have a deeper issue with science developing ways to fix problems which are essentially the symptoms of real problems in society. American culture has decadent and careless tendencies that are very tied into environmental degradation (which can be linked to several health issues, including cancer) and very tied to our health in general as we age. So if we ignore the underlying causes of many illnesses and only treat the symptoms, how are we really improving the situation? 

 - I have to go, but may continue this thread later.

  Embryos created with DNA from 3 people http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080205/ap_on_sc/embryo_research&printer=1;_ylt=AhKKgOUkN4nBx_0a3ehOZd1xieAA 2/5/08

British scientists have created human embryos containing DNA from two women and one man, a procedure that could potentially prevent conditions including epilepsy, diabetes and heart failure.

Though the preliminary research has raised concerns about the possibility of genetically modified babies, the scientists say that the embryos are still only primarily the product of one man and one woman.

"We are not trying to alter genes, we're just trying to swap a small proportion of the bad ones for some good ones," said Patrick Chinnery, a professor of neurogenetics at Newcastle University involved in the research.

The process aims to avoid passing onto children bad mitochondria genes, which are contained outside the nucleus in a normal female egg. Mitochondria are a cell's energy source, but mistakes in their genetic code can result in serious diseases like epilepsy, strokes, and mental retardation.

In their research, Chinnery and colleagues used normal embryos created from one man and one woman that had defective mitochondria in the woman's egg. They then transplanted that embryo into an emptied egg donated from a second woman who had healthy mitochondria.

"The proportion of genes in the mitochondria is infinitesimal," said Francoise Shenfield, a fertility expert with the European Society of Human Fertility and Reproduction. Shenfield is not connected to the Newcastle University Research.

Only trace amounts of a person's genes come from the mitochondria, and experts said it would be incorrect to say that the embryos have three parents.

"Most of the genes that make you who you are are inside the nucleus," Chinnery said. "We're not going anywhere near that."

So far, 10 such embryos have been created, though they have not been allowed to develop for more than five days. Chinnery hoped that after further experiments in the next few years the process might be available to parents undergoing in-vitro fertilization.

Similar research has been conducted in animals in Japan, and has already led to the birth of healthy mice who had their mitochondria genes corrected.

Shenfield said that further tests to assess the safety and efficacy of the process were necessary before it could be offered as a potential treatment.

The New Job - Part One -

I've been unemployed since September 2007 and will finally rejoin working society tomorrow at a new job. I'm excited because it's a job I really want - working with fossils at the Natural History Museum. But I'm also having the usual bit of nerves because starting a new job and a new routine is a change and that's always stressful. But I'm so ready to make this jump forward and it is quite exciting. 

I started my last job on January 31st after a similar bout of unemployment. I was hired full time and scheduled 40 hours a week. But it was the rainiest winter/spring in years and so a lot of the projects that I was scheduled to work at were rained out all the time. This trend lasted months, until midsummer when we got an excavation job and then they wanted us to work overtime for several months straight. In the winter, work was slow again but they managed to find lab work to keep me afloat until field work started up in the spring again. Then you could basically hit a repeat button for the next year and a half, except it wasn't quite as rainy. So my last full time job lasting over 2 1/2 years amounted to probably 1 actual year of full time work and a lot of part time work. Plus I was sent all over California, my schedule changed all the time, and I generally felt frazzled by the uncertainty of it all. I also went deeper into debt, which last time I checked, usually doesn't happen with full time jobs.

In contrast, my new job is at the same building every day; rain or shine, 9 to 5, and I don't even need to take a freeway to get there! Although I am calling it my new job, I am not actually celebrating until I sign the paperwork. Just a precaution. Call it superstition. Well, I need to go knock on some wood so I'll see you later.