You know, we usually take it for granted.

Here are some thoughts. Or should I say reflections?

1. Usually you look through it, unless it’s dirty. You know, a pane of glass.
2. I don’t know about you, but I find washing windows to be a pain.
3. It can also be something you drink from. Or a quantity. (“I’ll take a glass of milk, please.”)
4. Or something to boost your vision. (“Now where are my glasses?”)
5. It can have very sharp edges, sometimes used in tools or instruments.
6. Traditionally, it’s made from silicon dioxide (SO₂), a common constituent of sand and coming from quartz flakes. Because of the high temperatures required to work with pure silica, most glass is made with additives that lower the required heating levels and allow for different varieties of glass, soda-lime being the most common. Borosilicate gives Pyrex, and lead glass being the most brilliant and having a lower melting point.
7. Contrary to a widespread thought, it is not a solid liquid but rather an amorphous (non-crystalline) solid, allowing it transparency. In addition, it’s chemically inert, which is why it’s so wonderful for bottles and jars.
8. Fiberglass is stronger than many metals by weight, non-magnetic, non-conductive, can be molded into complex shapes, and is generally chemically inert. Its applications include aircraft, boats, automobiles, bathtubs and enclosures, hot tubs, swimming pools, septic tanks, water tanks, roofing, pipes, cladding, surfboards, and orthopedic casts. It could easily be a Tendrils of its own.
9. Spun glass is probably best known as insulation, while its use as fiber-optics cable is touted as superior to traditional copper wiring.
10. The oldest known glass objects are beads, perhaps originating as an accidental byproduct of metalworking or lead glazes for pottery.

Technological advances in glassmaking could furnish a Tendril on its own, but let’s not overlook the fact that one of the most recent gives us the tough glass that’s on the screen of the laptop or smart phone where you’re likely reading this.

Here are ten more confessions on being a published author.

1. “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” – Mark Twain
2. “Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.” ― Stephen King
3. “Style means the right word. The rest matters little.” – Jules Renard
4. “My aim in constructing sentences is to make the sentence utterly easy to understand, writing what I call transparent prose. I’ve failed dreadfully if you have to read a sentence twice to figure out what I meant.” – Ken Follett
5. “I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent, he would be wise to develop a thick hide.” – Harper Lee
6. “One of [the things you learn as you get older] is, you really need less … My model for this is late Beethoven. He moves so strangely and quite suddenly sometimes from place to place in his music, in the late quartets. He knows where he’s going and he just doesn’t want to waste all that time getting there … One is aware of this as one gets older. You can’t waste time.” – Ursula K. Le Guin
7. “Rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil – but there is no way around them.” – Isaac Asimov
8. “Was I bitter? Absolutely. Hurt? You bet your sweet ass I was hurt. Who doesn’t feel a part of their heart break at rejection. You ask yourself every question you can think of, what, why, how come, and then your sadness turns to anger. That’s my favorite part. It drives me, feeds me, and makes one hell of a story.” – Jennifer Salaiz
9. “I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.” – Sylvia Plath
10. “I used to save all my rejection slips because I told myself, one day I’m going to autograph these and auction them. And then I lost the box.” – James Lee Burke

With their many different species, jellyfish are found in every ocean in the world, including very cold waters of the Arctic and Antarctic. Some are even found in freshwater. Some species live in shallow, sunlit waters near the surface, while others live in the deep, dark, cold or somewhere in-between. Here are a few other points.

1. They predate dinosaurs, bobbing along in the currents for at least 500 million years and possibly 700 million years, roughly three times the age of the first dinosaurs.
2. They aren’t fish. They don’t have a backbone or spine, nor do they have brains, hearts, eyes, scales, gills, or fins. Instead, they swim by opening and closing their “bells.” Many scientists simply group them as “gelatinous zooplankton.”
3. A few species have surprisingly complex vision. For instance, the box jellyfish has 24 “eyes,” two of which can see in color. It’s also believed this animal’s complicated array of visual sensors makes it one of the few creatures to have a full 360-degree view of its environment.
4. Its lifespan depends on the species in question. Some live for just a few days or weeks, while others can live for several decades or more. One species, called the immortal jellyfish (Turritopsis dohrnii), is capable of reversing its life cycle and returning to a younger stage of development after it reaches sexual maturity. This means that it can essentially live forever as long as it is not killed by predators or other external factors.
5. This ability is a major subject of research, as it could help the medical field understand how to turn cancerous cells into noncancerous cells like muscles, nerves, or skin.
6. Jellyfish use tentacles to catch their food. These long, thin appendages on the sides and bottom of the jellyfish’s body are covered in tiny stinging cells that contain a venom to stun and capture prey. When they encounter something edible, they use their tentacles to bring it closer to their mouth, located in the center of their body.
7. They are carnivores, meaning they eat other animals. Since they’re unable to chew their food, they usually eat small marine animals they can swallow whole, such as
8. plankton, small fish, and crustaceans like shrimp and lobsters. They’ll also eat smaller jellyfish.
9. The power of their stings can vary widely depending on the species. The most venomous is probably the box jellyfish, capable of killing an adult human in just a few minutes with a single sting. Each box jellyfish reportedly carries enough venom to kill more than 60 humans. To make matters worse, their stings are excruciatingly painful — it’s said the pain could kill you before the venom does.
10. Jellyfish are eaten by larger predators, such as tuna, sea turtles, and whales. They’re even a delicacy in some places, such as in Japan and Korea. The Japanese have transformed jellyfish into candy. More often, they find their way into salads, fried into crunchy noodles, or are eaten with soy sauce like sushi.