Month: September 2022

Many years ago, I discovered Sophie B. Hawkins; it was during the release of the Whaler album.  I was fascinated by her music, it showed both femininity and assertiveness.  She was on tour and came to the Seattle area.  I know that I wanted to see her in concert to I cast a wide net and sent mail to many friends; I got one taker.  The show was phenomenal, and she did not disappoint.  However, this is not a post about music.

Hawkins is unconventional, though I didn’t know it at the time.  She once came up in conversation with my cousin, who described her as a self-confessed ‘omnisexual’, which I eventually looked up.  Years later, I remember reading and article where she was expecting a child, at the age of 50.  That piqued my interest.  When she was 31, she had the forethought to freeze fifteen of her embryos; she decided to thaw one and have a child.  You can say what you will about her, but this woman is both unconventional and fascinating.

My fascination didn’t end there, I filed away the concept of freezing embryos, since I had not heard of any other instances.

Continue reading “It is civic duty to save a life” →

Before the pandemic, I met with different friends for coffee regularly.  Since these are mostly former colleagues, we often reminisce on shared memories.  Sometimes our conversations drift to other friends and how they’re doing.  We occasionally talk about our current positions.  Sometimes those conversations are celebrations; occasionally they are rants.  That said, their different takes on the same events persistently surprise me.  Everyone has different perspective and life experiences.

One such friend has an identical twin, though I’ve never seen them both together, save for the occasional picture.  I found this fascinating.  For instance, I listened intently of stories where they played on the same basketball team and was very amused by imagining how the opposing players would react to seeing the ‘same’ person twice on the court.  Similarly, I wondered how well face detection technology worked between identical twins.  There are many questions that a geek like me would ask about being an identical twin, mostly debates about ‘nature vs. nurture’.

Continue reading “A fraction of a person” →