Posting on a weekend brain

I had something to say, but it's hard to make my brain care on a weekend. And yes, the music's been playing all morning.

Musical distractions never help the blog. It's more fun to sing along than blather.

Ah well. Let's talk leaves for a moment, then. It'll pass as a topic.

I take a fair number of pointless leaf photos. New leaves in the spring, mature leaves, turning leaves, and dead leaves. I'd say I don't know why, but that wouldn't be entirely true.

I like the way leaves look.

I like the structures of (and in) leaves, I like the shapes, I like the patterns, and I like the functionality. I find a lot of beauty in functionality, but we can discuss that another time when I'm in more of a pseudophilosophical mood.

I take a fair number of leaf photos, as I said, and they spend an awful lot of time sitting on my nerdstick and not being used for anything. You see, I take the pictures and I like the pictures, but when it comes to posting them on the blog a little voice inside my head (one of the many) takes over and tells me that if I keep posting leaf photos my two fans will get extremely tired of leaves.

I care about you people, you know.

Or maybe I just don't want to see anyone getting tired of leaves.

Leaves are pretty cool, really.

If you want to look at leaves from a different (and purely aesthetic. I'm not in the mood to talk biology today. It is the weekend, after all) point of view, try cutting out a couple of small cardboard frames -- sort of like an old-fashioned photographic slide frame -- and sandwiching a leaf between them. Um... I suppose you'll have to wait for spring to try this, but... oh, wait. Lettuce would do, if you're desperate to try to see things from my point of view. Ok then. Take your cardboard-and-leaf sandwich and hold it up to a light source. It'll give you a clearer look at the veins and other structures that are below the cuticle and epidermis. This works best with thinner leaves, naturally.

And what's the point of the exercise?

Just a different way of looking at things, that's all. You could compare leaves from different plants if you want to get a feel for leaf variety, or you could simply enjoy the various shapes hidden within a leaf.

Or, if you do it out in the yard come spring, you could make your neighbours wonder if you've gone completely bats. That's good too.




And on that note... I need to go change laundry loads. Expect a few more leaf photos in the next little while, now that I've explained them a bit. I'm getting tired of them taking up space for no reason.