I'm Not Running for President

In college my housemates and I spent a disproportionate amount of time personifying objects, which is part of why I find this ad, about the wind and for wind turbines, awesome.

Miracle Berries

I cannot eat sour foods. I pucker uncontrollably, turn red, cry, and my throat closes up. It is truly horrible. Unfortunately, my sour receptors are also very keen- oranges, for example, are a bit too sour for me to really enjoy. Limes, Granny Smith apples, kumquat and grapefruit- out of the question.

For Valentine's day, Adam came up with a gift to address this issue. A magical gift by the name of "miracle berries" or "miracle fruit."

Miracle berries are just that; berries from West Africa that, for about 20-40 minutes after you eat them, make sour foods taste sweet. It is hard to imagine or believe, but it is true, and amazing! The proof I offer you, besides personal testimony, is in the form of pictures. The one at the top is a before (horrific face caused by lime) and the ones on the left are befores, on the rights afters (kumquat-induced):

I love the last lines of poems.

Navigating in the Dark
by Erik Campbell

Papua, Indonesia

In this mining town in Papua the electricity
Has a habit of giving up at night, and this

Is a miracle of modern stasis, a secular Shabbat,
Reminding us of what is expendable, of how so few

Of us ever truly experience the dark. We are amazed,
My wife and I, with the heavy darkness

Of the no moon jungle, insect sounds lacerating
All illusions of silent places. "It's so absolute,"

My wife says, and I like to think she means
More than the darkness; the naked places

Of ourselves we dress in sunlight, lamps,
And recorded music like antithetical

Blanche DeBois's fearing a different sort
Of scrutiny. "We could pretend it's 1940,"

I say, "put a Jack Benny tape on the short wave
And drink coffee, light candles." She suggests

A walk outside instead, where there are dozens
Of others already out on paths bounded by jungle,

Stepping small and laughing loudly through various
Uncertainties; flashlights as eyes, ears like animals'.

Soon we are trying only to remember not to disappear
Altogether; everything is so absolutely, so darkly possible.

Happy St. Valentine's Day!