Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

I just finished Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, read over the span of about a month, with concentrated reading at Bonnaroo and Intonation.  Yes, I was the nerdy hippie girl reading about dead people while waiting to see Bloc Party.

Stiff was really high on the gross-out factor - I had to put it down a couple of times - but really interesting and thought-provoking.  I found myself wondering how many people, upon reading it, then went home and told their loved ones "I want to donate my body to science, but I'd prefer that they did/didn't do x following things..."  There are definitely things I am more OK with than others.

A thing I appreciated about the book had nothing actually to do with what happens when we die - but what happens to the living that are left behind.  Throughout the book the author talks about things that can be done with corpses, things that are done with corpses, and things that really shouldn't be done with corpses - but in the end she says that what SHOULD be done with a body is whatever the surviving loved ones can live with - the exception being organ donation.

So yeah, well worth a read, especially if you have a strong stomach.

Best. Fireworks. Ever.

I have no memory of going to see the fireworks when I was a small child. I had younger siblings, and my parents never wanted to mess with the noise and the late nights. When we were really young, we could see the fireworks display over the trees in our neighborhood, but within a few years that wasn't an option either. My ex and I always made a point of going downtown to watch the display, which was always timed to a local radio station's "patriotic concert". After moving to C, my friends and I would drive out to Windsor Road and watch the display over the research farms. This year we were just too damned tired and went to bed at 10.

What I do remember vividly, though, was one July 4th spent in Iowa City visiting my favorite aunt. I couldn't have been much older than 8. We went across the street into the park-y area by her apartment complex, and went through an entire box of matches trying to get my sparklers lit. I can't remember how long the sparklers lasted, but I do remember going back to her apartment and watching the Boston Pops concert (and fireworks) on her little TV.