I learned stuff this week.

You know how names can mean certain things? And sometimes, names can attach a lot of hopes to certain things. Or a name might end up sort of becoming really fitting later on in life. Or it might take on different meanings as the person/animal goes through their life? Are you understanding where I'm going with this? My cat, Iris, was named after the flower. When she went blind, people began assuming she was named for the part of the eye (that for her, doesn't work correctly). A couple of nights ago, I was reading a book and the characters live in Iris Haven, Florida. I have no idea if that is a real place or not. It doesn't matter. The point is that the main character was having a flashback to a scene where Iris Haven gets its name and the name 'Iris' became a major part of that flashback. I only know about as much as the next person regarding Greek mythology. I think it's interesting, but there are so many gods and goddesses that it's pretty difficult to keep up, especially if you have only a mild curiosity about it to begin with. Anyway, the story went that there was a goddess named Iris. And she is the goddess of rainbows. She is supposed to have used the rainbows to breach the gap between the gods and humans and acted as a messenger between the two. Also, in the story, she is known as the goddess whose job it is to transport the souls of dying women. This struck me as really interesting. Iris has always been kind of special to me, not just because she's my own cat, but because she was born just a couple of weeks before my mom died. I look at her and know that for a brief amount of time, she and my mom were both alive at the same time and it doesn't seem like my mom has been gone as long as it feels like she has sometimes. It's comforting in an odd way. Also, to think I unknowingly named her after a goddess that had the job of transporting dying womens' souls is kind of interesting to me. Iris was adopted during a period of time that I really have no actual memories, just a black hole. But, she helped to bring me back from the really ugly place that I was stuck for months after losing my mom. Iris getting so sick and nearly dying made me aware of the fact that there are other things outside of my own grief that needed to be dealt with. It helped to pull me out, because I was in pretty deep and, looking back, I am terrified of the fact that I can get so sad and so grief-stricken that I literally lose my mind. I saw something the other day that said it was a psychological fact that emotional pain only lasts 12 minutes. If you're still hurting emotionally after 12 minutes, it's self-inflicted. I don't know if that's true or not. I bet there is a way to measure emotional pain in the brain, like maybe some sort of chemical is released at the time your feelings get hurt and the chemical dissipates from the brain in 12 minutes? The fact was just the fact, no explanation came with it. Sometimes those kinds of facts bug me. I want answers, damn it. I like random facts and bits of trivia, but I want more than one-liners if at all possible.

I also have learned one sentence in Spanish, which I'm sure will come in handy daily:
¿Tienes algún chocolate?
Do you have any chocolate? (My hope is that the answer is always, 'Si.')