Category: Biology

Footnote on ‘The Plant Hunter’ by Cassandra Leah Quave

The great Alice Wong’s Disability Visibility newsletter hit my inbox last year with a book giveaway of The Plant Hunter: A Scientist’s Quest for Nature’s Next Medicines, by Cassandra Leah Quave. It’s not too often that my interest in disability culture crosses with my lay-person’s obsession with plant chemistry, so my curiosity was immediately piqued when I read the blurb… Read more

Sometimes a Snake is Just a Snake, Essay 19 of #52essays2017

Last night while I was sitting on our bed talking to Alabaster about today’s plans to check out an open mic in Castle Rock, Alabaster stopped me and said, “Hold on a sec.” He had been standing in the doorway and stepped into the hall, grabbing something on the way out. I learned this thing was the little trashcan next… Read more

Drinking Monarch Nectar, AKA Milkweed (Asclepias), Essay 12 of #52essays2017

On the day of the hydrosols tasting with Cathy Skipper and Florian Birkmayer (offered through New York Institute of Aromatherapy), my daily hallucinations were painted blue, an electric blue that did not want to let go its hold on my visionscape. In recent years, I’ve found that strong scents can change my visual palette almost immediately, but somehow that blue… Read more

CERKL Gene: My Newly Identified Eye Disease Is Not an Eye Disease, Essay 10 of #52essays2017

Last week I visited my ophthalmologist and learned that my blindness is caused by a mutation to the CERKL (pronounced like circle) gene, which, it turns out, is oddly not specific to my damaged retinas. At Genecards.org I read, “CERKL (Ceramide Kinase Like) is a Protein Coding gene.” And on Wikipedia I learn that “ceramides are a family of waxy,… Read more

Adulterated Rose or, The Smell of Regrettable Youth, Essay 7 of #52essays2017

The guy with the hard metal name was beautiful in my degenerate eye. Beautiful with a girlfriend. And a Volkswagen bus. This was around the time of the earthquake of ’89, when the influences of flower power still loomed large in San Francisco. I’d been pining for so long and then he said they’d broken up. We climbed into his… Read more

Ylang-Ylang: Calming the Panic of Love & Memory, Essay 5 of #52essays2017

When I first read about ylang-ylang (Cananga odorata), I’d no smell associations, but I was intrigued because it is included in so many aphrodisiac blends. It is both relaxing and stimulating, which is a fabulous combination when you’re trying to get it on. Then I smelled ylang-ylang out of a labeled essential oil bottle, and I realized I’d smelled it… Read more