Puddles of Thought

Turtle Brain

By: Gracie April 17, 2025

I’ve been thinking about the term lizard brain. I hear it used when we’re referring to the behaviors humans exhibit when they react to feeling afraid. Violent, argumentative, fawning, running away. It makes me think of Komodo dragons and crocodiles. So cold-blooded! I stood on an ecological walkway last week, watching a clustering of turtles…

Thermodynamics and the Arrow of Time

By: Gracie January 5, 2024

timeentropy, philosophy, physics, science, thermodynamicsLeave a Comment

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the second law of thermodynamics. Fancy explanation: The arrow of time is the “one-way direction” or “asymmetry” of time. The thermodynamic arrow of time is provided by the second law of thermodynamics, which says that in an isolated system, entropy tends to increase with time. Wikipedia lol Gracie explanation: Heat…

Latin Friday: Zeus Turned into a Goose

By: Gracie December 11, 2020December 11, 2020

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My team was sharing about weird school memories, and I explained how I learned being the Latin Club president meant I could make a morning announcement whenever I wanted. I began a series called Latin Friday, where I’d read a wildly paired down tl;dr version of a Greek Myth. They asked me to reinstate this…

The real conspiracy surrounding the Moon Landings. The real-est. Ever.

By: Gracie January 31, 2018May 21, 2018

just a thought, MemoirAlan Shepherd, conspiracy theory, moon, moon conspiracy, moon landing, restorative yoga, yogaLeave a Comment

When I went into my yoga class tonight, I steered past my typical section of the room because it smelled bad. I’m not sure what the source was, and I practiced “letting go” by finding a new spot in the studio. We settled into our various spots and worked through several postures holding our knees,…

Einstein, Bad Quotes, and You

By: Gracie November 22, 2017November 22, 2017

just a thoughtbad quotes, education, einstein, personal struggle, self-worth1 Comment

I’m convinced most people don’t know what Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity really means or anything about what he did beyond that. We take for granted that he was really smart and then quote him as a philosophical piece of evidence for our own agendas. I have heard lots of people reference him to justify…

4 Minutes, 9 Seconds of Joy

By: Gracie October 5, 2017

just a thoughtbassanova, bossa nova, depression, marvin gaye, music, sexual healing, studio rioLeave a Comment

It’s been a heavy week on a lot of layers. No need to go into the deets – we’ve all been watching the news and also have our personal lives. I find it pretty easy to slip into a cloud of heaviness and gloom, and the Studio Rio version of “Sexual Healing” has been like…

On Leadership

By: Gracie July 25, 2017July 25, 2017

just a thoughtasteroid, astronomy, jupiter, leadership, planetsLeave a Comment

Jupiter protects us. The giant, red, gaseous planet’s gravitational pull distracts asteroids swirling around the median of our solar system, looking for a place to land. It calls to them with its massive force “Come to me”. One of those rocks could destroy us. Maybe not all of us, but enough to take down our…

What if every story was a universe we created?

By: Gracie June 28, 2017February 1, 2018

just a thoughtAlternate reality, books, Children's Books, Hey Diddle Diddle, stories, universesLeave a Comment

Hey Diddle Diddle The cat and the fiddle The cow jumped over the moon. The little dough laughed to see such a sight, and the dish ran away with the spoon. I have this story memorized by heart. It’s my son’s favorite 4 page cardboard book. He’s one years old, and he’s been staring at…

Spiderwebs, cognition, and AI

By: Gracie June 11, 2017February 1, 2018

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“The Thoughts of a Spiderweb” appeared in Quanta Magazine and was reprinted in The Atlantic. It presents research on how spiders adjust their behaviors when something adjusts in their webs, like some of the strands being snipped. In an experiment, the spiders began using the dangling web threads to catch insects and pull them up…

Grief Work

By: Gracie April 12, 2017April 13, 2017

just a thoughtemotional health, fiction, grief, momsLeave a Comment

I have heard it said about the Millennial generation that we don’t like the pain of life, and we live jumping from one high to the next. That’s nothing new. Each generation has its own way of distracting from the truth that life is hard. I’m guilty of this distraction. There are “small” things like finding…