Fall with Style, Win with what You Have, and Menu

My favorite Buzz Lightyear line is when he flies away with Woody. He knows he can't fly and says, "I am not flying; I am falling with style." The character's self-acceptance of knowing his limits and using them to his advantage. If I do nothing else this next year, I want to find my way to falling with style.

Mark and I had our most event-filled week of all time since before the Covid. We refer to that epoch as 'the time before before". We got rolling by doing two out-of-house events in one week and progressed to two events in one day on Saturday. Post-surgery I am building confidence to leave the house more and take more steps daily. I found it all as exciting as making the trek up the hill at Runyon Canyon the week before. A more prominent part of my life is accepting any limitations and setting myself up to win with what I have now.

Last weekend we went to a workshop show our friends Kellen and Marnie put on in a workshop space in Hollywood. They performed songs and did a little bit of live-action for what will eventually be an animated project. The show portrayed the story of a boy who is different. He questions his mind to resolve how he could use his differences to win at something. What game could he win where there was no score? I found this meaningful for myself. Writing my blog is one way I am winning my game without a score. Also, getting a little exercise every day to see if I can boost my range beyond walking the dog around the block.

We also went as guests to see the screening of a new film called Menu at the Academy of motion pictures in North Hollywood. I don't want to say much about the film. Here is a quick outline. Each scene is introduced as a meal course. It's set on a remote island. People have come to an exclusive restaurant, there is great suspense, and the cast shows some acting chops. I don't think chops were on the menu. I was riveted to the edge of my seat.

What I am reading this week.

The 4 Percent Universe | Richard Carnow It's a historical account of current cosmology, the science of where we are in the universe now, where we came from and where things are going. In the past, cosmology was not an actual science in the mind of astronomers. You could have a theory but no way to test or observe the reality. Just in my lifetime, the tools that make it possible to compare reality to theories have turned our collective grasp of the universe on its ear. There are no tidy answers to explain a missing element to what we can now observe. What could it be?

I loved the insights about the personalities and rivalries in the Cosmology Community of Scientists and Astronomers. Also, for the happy accidents, one group had the proof but didn't know what they had, and another group knew what it was but did not have any data.

Then there is the science and math part that stretched me beyond my limited comprehension or my patience for reading it again. My take on it: right now, the data backs an expanding universe that will fizzle out as it is pulled apart. There is more "stuff" in the universe than we can see. In fact, we can see and measure only a fraction of what is in the universe. The unseen stuff is referred to as dark matter and dark energy.

One surprise I found insightful is energy takes up space. Energy as in the swing of a bat, the roar of an engine. With the big bang, there was incomprehensible energy released. We don't yet have the understanding to explain what it means.  So I am filled with excitement and hope to see how we go about figuring out more about cosmology.