A pIcture is worth a thousand words.

Prolix

[proh-liks, proh-liks] adjective

1. extended to great, unnecessary, or tedious length; long and wordy.

Prolix pretty much sums me up completely. Like seriously. I was that geek in college who adjusted margins so that my papers were shorter (ok not always, but often enough). On this essay exam I took in Lancaster, England I only stopped writing because I ran out of paper. And the booklet I was given was meant for 2 essays and I only had to write one. And I used all of that paper in half the alloted time (actually less than half). So yeah, me=prolix. Notice the "or" in the above definition though, ie. great length OR unnecessary length OR tedious length. I'd like to think my verbosity is usually great, but I gotta admit it's probably unnecessary quite frequently. Case in point: one story that I'm (gasp!) submitting as part of my MFA in CW writing sample started as a 22 page monster. Now it's around 13 and is SO much better for it. But I do hope my writing is rarely tedious.

One thing that wasn't prolix? My bio thesis on the possible ramifications of incorporating positive species interactions in coral reef restoration (yeah, yeah it's title was prolix...). That monster clocked in at just under 7 pages I think. So, there, I can be concise. I just choose not to. Because I'm lazy. And yeah, writing more is my version of lazy. I never said I was sane.

This is probably why I could never really be a poet though. When I write a poem they have to be about one very specific, very small thing, a simple idea, an emotion, one small scenario. Anything more and it turns into something way too long to be a poem (not that poems can't be long, but I really don't want to write an epic "Song of Myself" type piece). This is also why the idea of the "short" story (as compared to a novel) makes me uneasy. I'm really good at expanding ideas and not so good at containing them.

Interestingly enough my current "novel" (read: one day maybe potential novel length work) originally came to me when I was asked to write a 3 page vignette. Yes, that's right, I thought my potential novel length WIP could be 3 pages. It's currently around 70-ish and it feels like I've barely scratched the surface.

But I'm smart like that.

Scratch that, I'm prolix like that.

But, it's photo Friday! So like a true prolix word-queen, I word-ed up some pictures. I really was just playing around because I like fooling with photoshop sometimes. I'm so far from an expert at photoshop it's laughable (as you can tell by my work below), but it's fun sometimes.

Hey look it's me! In Florence. I really dig this picture; I think I look good, Florence looks good and Miss Disdainbrook and I had a totally fab time traipsing around Florence. I also like that my smile is wonky/lopsided. So the text is a poem by Robert Browning (NOT BY ME) called "Old Pictures in Florence".

A picture of the beach by moi and the text is actually mine as well. It's part of the ending of a story called "Rescue" which takes place entirely at a beach.

The Mighty Galapagos Sea Lion

Roister

\ROY-stur\ , intransitive verb;

1. to engage in boisterous merrymaking; to revel; to carouse

2. to bluster; to swagger

So I'm back on the blog-wagon and I am determined to keep this thing at least semi-up to date. My life is not so interesting now that I am back in California. I'm mainly enjoying spending time with family and freaking out about grad schools (more of that to come in later posts).

But for now I want to introduce Photo Phridays... no Foto Fridays? Photo Fridays?

I have such a large gallery of really neat photos that I'd like to share somewhere, so I thought this would be as good a place as any.

So today I bring you the Galapagos Sea Lion, from the small island of San Cristobal, where I lived and studied for about 4 months.

The word roister is really apt for these creatures. They are incredibly playful, expressive, loud and they do have a sort of swagger to them.

Two baby sea lions, with a female swimming in the back.

This would be me, conversing with a juvenile.

A sea lion pup being dramatic and woebegone . That or he's posing.

I love this picture because the sea lion looks so out of place, like she's living in a grassland or something. But really there is some ocean just a few steps away.

A female, full grown sea lion.

That big bulky blob in the water? That's the alpha male. Notice how much larger he is than the females.

Some interesting facts about the Galapagos Sea Lion.

-They are closely related to the California Sea Lion but are considered a separate species.

-The IUCN declared them Endangered in 2008, though population data is pretty limited.

-To tell the difference between a sea lion and a seal look at the head. If there are ear flaps it's a sea lion, if not, it's a seal. Also sea lions have a rotating pelvis, so they can "walk" on land much easier than a seal.

-To tell male from female look for a slight bump on the crown of the male's head. If it's an alpha male this bump will be large.

-In Ecuador they call the sea lion, los lobos marinos, or lobos for short. In English that translate to sea wolves.