Periwinkle Blue

Periwinkle blue. Tough as a coffin nail. D'ya like dags? Sorry, sometimes I drop into obscure movie quotes. Name that film and win a big, "hey, that's right!" from me. Personally.

Sheryl and I are bumping up against a few boundary issues lately. I'm weary of dealing with it. Like Sheryl has been blogging lately about why it might be a bad idea to cross-breed a mouse with say, rice. I can't verify the source right now. But I can verify that back when I was unknowingly eating genetically modified corn flakes I was breaking out in hives every night. When I stopped eating those corn flakes the hives went away. Normally I can eat corn whenever I want, no problems. We later discovered that Trader Joe's had pulled those cornflakes from their shelves because of the GMO issue. Yet another reason to be thankful for Trader Joes: they've got integrity. GMO corn was originally pulled from the market for human consumption for that very reason: acute allergic response. Corn is much easier to modify than wheat. Wheat genomes have probably already been mapped by now. You might think of modifying DNA as crossing a boundary with potentially disastrous consequences.

Through some interesting coincidences I came across a person, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, who deals with boundary issues on the internet. She and her partner, Patrick Nielsen Hayden posted a link to Sheryl's blog which had to do with. . . boundary issues ! Teresa moderates comments on "the world's most popular blog" called "Boing-Boing." Teresa and Patrick's blog is titled "Making Light." I don't think their blog is about boundaries, it's about all kinds of interesting things. Teresa and Patrick do cool stuff like teaching writing, editing, playing in a band. I sent them an email or two but they are probably way too busy to respond. And they probably have good boundaries like, for example, when they don't feel like answering an email, they don't. This is a good thing, to have good boundaries.

Manners are good boundaries I think. I've always thought that. Teresa Nielsen Hayden enforces politeness on the internet. That makes her my hero at the moment. She probably gets tired of it, but I'm glad she's doing it.