Day 308

Oak leaf the size of my foot!

I ran for 21 minutes in the pouring rain, a distance of 3 km, and I really think that I have messed up my pedometer, because it didn't feel as though I was going very fast at all, and the calculation reveals that I am supposed to have run at 6.58 minutes per km.  I know this is just under 7, but still, it seems wrong.  The first uphill was SO hard, I was panting and wheezing by the top and sorely tempted to stop, but didn't, just kept going, trying to keep the pace, and ease my breathing.

Coming to a flat after a steep uphill is almost like going over the top of the hill on a bicycle, and suddenly being able to coast downhill.  Almost, because you can't really coast, but there is a slackening of pressure, the gradient has become your friend once more, and your body knows that its breathing will begin to quiet.

We have such incredible, amazing, intricate brains, and yet we are still, after thousands and thousands of years, largely just animals, most interested in sex and power.  It is astonishing that people will give up entire lives of love and companionship for that brief union with another person, that thrill, that excitement.  And in school, boys scramble to best one another, in the workplace, men jostle for the alpha-male spot.  Yes, women do it as well, but not as much, they are more likely to work together on things.  And this is due to fascinating differences in male and female brains. 

The research on brains is galloping along in leaps and bounds, and is, as Matthew told me the other day, "one of the last frontiers".   I think he is going to be one of the brain's explorers.  He was explaining to me how difficult it is to go from the study of the simple (relatively) work of neurons, to the concept of where the mind resides, how it all works.  He was showing me how the little electrical pulse is generated and the dendrites communicate with another cell, illustrating the explanation by drawing it on the carpet with his finger, which was the nearest place to hand, and Molly, sitting at my feet, bent down to where his hand was drawing, following very carefully with her eyes and then her nose.  Matt and I collapsed laughing, or, as Matthew told us when he was very small, which was obviously how his brain (being male and thus less developed in terms of language) had heard and perceived it, "We crapped up laughing!"

Which brings us to an interesting point about dog brains.  Dogs are all descended from domesticated wolves a process which began about 16 000 years ago.  Dogs who have been bred to work with people, like labradors, retrievers, sheepdogs, know about pointing, they follow visual cues, and will always follow the direction of a human pointed finger, whereas other breeds like hounds who follow the scent and one another, and are more independent, will not.  So Molly probably thought he was pointing at something interesting, perhaps something to eat!

I am doing a painting, using acrylics, which I haven't used for almost a year.  It is so hard, painting again, since I am used to pastels now, my medium of choice, as you can just go over and over with different colours, mix charcoal etc, and the blending just happens, or you can just rub it out and begin again.  But paint, you have to be so careful, I ended up awkwardly balancing about 7 paintbrushes in my hands, all coated with different colours.  I also kept mixing the colours that I didn't want to mix, on the canvas, and really, it is difficult to get subtlety.  So here is the beginning, the first day, no doubt it will change a lot when I get to paint again, perhaps on Sunday.  This is just the head, as it is a picture of me in the bath, and Matthew, hearing I was doing it, said, "You're not going to put THAT on Facebook, are you?"