As i continue work in this new year and decade, I have come to two realizations. First, that I haven't answered this simple question: WHAT DOES "BEING HAPPY" LOOK LIKE? Second, that I haven't answered the question out of sheer terror. Not because I am afraid of happiness but because the prospect of CHANGE gives me chills, makes me sweat and shake in fear.

CHANGE makes me quake in terror, a nobody and a single soul. It's made me realize how awfully discombobulated a whole country looks like trying to embrace the true meaning AND practice of CHANGE.

It's hard for me to articulate what change, happiness, fulfillment and joy look like, in actions before it actually becomes a feeling. How can I expect 300 million other people to have that answer and make it happen?

So, as I retreat to a quiet corner to think "what will make ME happy and fulfilled in my own life", my first impulse is to just sit by the window and look at the blue sky.

In the recent issue of Nature is an article reporting the most earth-like planet yet discovered outside our solar system and, importantly, one that is very likely to be watery...perhaps as much as 50% water.

From the News and Views in this week's Nature:

The hunt for Earth-like worlds has taken a major step forward with the discovery of a planet only 2.7 times larger than Earth. Its mass and size are just as theorists would expect for a water-rich super-Earth...

Charbonneau's team1 has found that the small, faint star GJ 1214 undergoes repeated dimming of 1.3% for 52 minutes every 1.6 days. The only plausible interpretation is that a planet orbits the star with an orbital period of 1.6 days and that it has a radius that is 12% that of the star. Good estimates of the star's radius (21% that of the Sun) put the planet's radius at only 2.7 Earth radii. Such a small planet orbiting a star other than the Sun is an extraordinary find. With the tools currently available, only one other extrasolar planet has been reported that is thought to be close in size to Earth, namely CoRoT-7b, at 1.7 Earth radii. The new planet, which is only about 13 parsecs away, is named GJ 1214b. Importantly, it pulls gravitationally on its host star, causing the star to move with a speed of 12 m s−1, which the team has detected through measurements of wavelength shifts in the star's light (the Doppler effect). The planet's inferred mass is a mere 6.6 Earth masses, which, when combined with its radius, leads to a density of 1.9 g cm−3. By contrast, Earth's average density is much higher, at 5.5 g cm−3. Because water has a low density of about 1 g cm−3, the chemical composition of the new planet is probably some admixture of rock and water, with perhaps a small atmosphere of hydrogen and helium...

That solid material forms the building blocks of large planets such as Saturn and Neptune, and perhaps smaller planets as well, such as the new one1. But the density of 1.9 g cm−3 for this new planet imposes a constraint on the relative amounts of each constituent. To keep the planet's density that low requires that it contains large amounts of water. If the planet were pure Fe and silicates, its density would be similar to Earth's. It must contain a huge amount of water, roughly 50% by mass.
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I love this bitch. Via Popeater's Toothless Demi Moore

Congratulations to Ann Althouse who's getting married thanks to her blog. This from Althouse: 500 miles later, I'm back in Madison.:

Did you understand the previous post? If not, the answer --along with much congratulations and debate -- appears in the comments, notably here. Let there be no doubt about it: A blogger --Althouse-- is engaged to be married to a man who began his connection to her as a commenter on her blog. After 4 years of writing at each other, we met in real life and found real love

This may be described as a power of blogs for love. At some point I will have to write a post titled, "Blogging Killed My Marriage". The title in itself is half the story, but you will have to wait for the other half. I can't write about it now.

This is one of the oldest memes of the blogosphere but it's just hit Facebookers, hitting me twice via Tracy Visselli and Aldon Hynes.

So here it goes :

1. My parents were into Santería back in the 1970s, but they were thoughtful enough to not force their kids into being initiated in the Afro-Caribbean syncretic religion.
2. Even though my Orisha is Oshun (the Lucumi goddess of Love and Rivers), I really don't like rivers that much. Actually, I was a beach bum for most of the 80s --I used to go to the beach 4 days a week (yes, even during weekdays) and had a tan so deep people thought I was naturally ebony skinned like Naomi Campbell.
3. Whenever I talk about "La Negra", especially about what she wants and what she needs, am talking about myself in the third person
4. My father was in the 1950s part of a Mambo dancing duo called "The Mambo Jets". His brother, Jimmy Sabater, is a well known (and old school) salsa singer and an original "Fania All-Star". I met a lot of the Fania people like Celia Cruz, Willie Colón, Tito Puente, Rubén Blades, and especially Pete "El Conde" Rodríguez, who was very good friends with my dad. Yet two people who I remember fondly are Héctor Lavoe (who was the nicest guy whenever he wasn't high) and Patato Valdés (who's hands were as big as truck tires). They both tried to teach me unsuccessfully to play congas; but I loved to spend hours watching them play whenever they were around.
5. Remember Vanessa Williams in that movie "Dance With Me"? The one that had that Puerto Rican heart throb, Chayanne? I was Chayanne's homework tutor in high school.
6. My native language is not English, it's Spanish. I couldn't write well at all in Shakespeare's language until I was about 25 years of age. I also speak, read and write Portuguese (with a carioca accent, thank you very much) and French (with a so-so Caribbean flavor). I can also read Italian and Catalan and understand them so-so (but I've never studied the languages formally).
7. Am dyslexic and couldn't read well until about 15. As for writing, I needed another 5 more years to get it right. Yet because I am so competitive, people around me had no idea. I've been always a voracious reader and total nerd with a capacity to remember every piece of information that tickles my fancy --whether useful or not.
8. One of my first jobs was as a door-to-door salesman of solar water heaters. In Puerto Rico. During a summer. Walking in the humid and sweltering Caribbean sun. My parents thought it would build character.
9. My brother and I almost died during an epidemic of dysentery in Puerto Rico.
10. I've smoked hashish. Didn't like it.
11. I worked as an extra in "Law and Order" once. HATED IT.
12. I love, love, love and miss terribly doing voice over work. Even if it were radio commercials and industrials. One of my silly little dreams is to be the voice of a cartoon character in a Pixar movie.
13. I've always been known as a fiery debater and many people thought that I'd go on to become a constitutional lawyer and/or public defender. My slacker instincts talked me out of getting a J.D. --I actually walked out of the LSATs. My father never made me forget how I had "walked away from my destiny".


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Back in July I wrote a post titled Pain that went under the radar for a lot of people but for my hardcore readers. It's interesting looking back at it that it's a post almost at the year's mid-point and that it was the first time I was openly acknowledging in more than a year that offline Liza was living a very different life than Liza online.

And yet I really didn't own up to everything that was and has been ailing me : 2008 goes down as the year I had to contend with the fact that the life I've lived for the last 10 years is over and that the physical pain that has been bashing me for the past year and a half has been amplified by the emotional anguish of knowing that my marriage is over.
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