If you think the sound of storm water runoff is rainbow, maybe you are different from the madding crowd. Brain Man is a word play on Rain Man. The first reaction of people to the word savant is, you know, retarded. That is probably now on the list of politically incorrect words, but it means merely slow, although slow does not mean retarded. En retard - is French, I think.

Being different has never been a secure place for people, but if they realized that everyone has a little bit of genius in them, they might feel differently. If everyone exercised their little bit of genius, a lot more problems could be solved, including but not limited to the global water crisis.

Rain water harvesting is one solution. Doesn't it sound like some melodic and cosmic vibe resonating in the reservoir of your brain and body, which is, by the way, made mostly of water.

Aren't we running a little bit late in addressing this issue in an intelligent manner?

For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction.

If you give coffee to hyperactive kids to drink, you can sometimes make them calm. There are tests and proof. There are similar arguments against it.

If you try to drive a crazy person crazy, he or she may become sane. I'm sure this can be proved somehow.

In the book night by A. Alvarez, page 48, he makes the point that under insane conditions, the insane function normally.

"Bruno Bettelheim, who had been a prisoner at Dachau and Buchenwald, pointed out that seriously disturbed people- especially paranoids- seem to lose their symptoms, and even to cope quite well in the concentration camps because the horrors of everyday life effortlessly outstripped those of their internal worlds. Maybe this was also true for me, on a miniature scale: when every night brought violence and the threat of death, without any intervention on my part, there was no longer any need for me to be afraid of my own night within the night."

There is no end of ways to cope.

I read The World According To Garp a long time ago.

In this book, a group called the Ellen Jamesians voluntarily had their tongues cut out in protest of crimes against women, but maybe also because they are afraid to say anything at all, for fear of repercussions. When you don't speak up for what is right or to defend yourself and those who can't defend themselves, then symbolically, you don't have a tongue either.

There is far too much fear and intimidation in the world. The perpetrators of fear and intimidation seem to have the upper hand. They seem to be saying "keep your mouth closed or you or your family or your bunny will get hurt."

Nevertheless, people are endlessly inventive in finding ways to communicate without directly tackling the subject at hand. It seems to be that human nature and communication go hand in hand.

Clinically depressed people who show a "flat effect" have lost or supressed the ability to show a full range of emotions. They are apathetic about everything. Symbolically, they have lost their tongues.

Those attempting to induce a "blunt affect" in a population by restricting normal human activities that include communication and speech and laughter and interpersonal relationships are sick, sick, sick.

Well, ok, then, jump in the tub.

No, not this one. This photo makes me feel like a stainless steel psycho.

Let's call it a small pool, indoors. Maybe we could "honeymoon" somewhere off the beaten path.

When the ladies get together for a Quilting Bee and have a Hen Party, look out! Quilting is not a forgotten art in the hinterlands of America, and it's not some drab scrap thing. There are lurking and menacing implications in the quilting frame, but you have to know the lingo.

I'm not talking about the mass produced quilts where some lonely mill worker feeds great sheets of material into an ever hungry machine quilter. This is about hand quilting or home sewing machine quilting.

Here is a crash course overview: Quilting essentials (the basic ingredients), Different quilt stitches, Hand sewn insertions, Different types of quilting, Different types of quilt patterns, Quilting in the ditch, Contour and echo quilting, Random quilting, Tying a knot, tufting, Embellishments, and Binding.

Here are some types of quilt patterns: Rail fence, Log cabin, Crazy quilt, Pinwheel, Card trick, Star, Mariner's compass, Drunkard's path, Dutchman's puzzle (triangles), Trip around the world, Tumbling blocks, Flying geese, Secret garden, Dresden plate, Wreath, Celtic knot (bias strip), Tulip, Hawaiian applique, and Broderie Perse.

These are types of quilting: Sashiko, Italian, Trapunto, and Kantha.

Here are just a few stitches for hand quilting: running, whipped running, stem, Portuguese knotted stem, outline, chain, raised chain, knotted cable, twisted chain, rosette chain, zig zag chain, rope, feather, maidenhair, arrowhead, fly, fern, blanket, closed blanket, crossed blanket, whipped blanket, Basque, knotted blanket, Breton, glove, Vandyke, Wheatear, cross, Romanian, long arm cross, open Cretan, petal, Mountmellick, coral, cable, chevron, double knot, loop, and bonnet.

You should be OK, because I didn't tell you all of them.