As much as I love books and literature, science has always been my first love. I truly believe that science, tempered by humanity and promoted and explained by great story-tellers will lead us into a future we can all be proud of.

It’s no secret I’m a huge fan of Neil deGrasse Tyson. He’s one of those scientists who has been able to appeal to the popular consciousness without compromising his scientific integrity. He’s a scientist AND a great story teller. He’s charming and captivating and still smart as hell.

Adjectives like “awesome” and “fantastic” and “amazing” really don’t seem like enough for this man. He’s incredible and I can’t say enough great things about him. On top of everything else, his sense of humor is plainly displayed through his multiple appearances on The Daily Show..

and on his Twitter.

I’m just trying to create a place where the Twitterverse meets the Universe. I’m happy to know that I occasionally succeed.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) March 22, 2012

Ahh… I think I’m in love… John Stewart agrees.

I don’t know what it is about Selena Gomez, but I absolutely adore her.

Not only is she adorable, she has a lot of energy and a fun personality.

I also love her sense of style and how she still dresses like her age even though I’m sure there’s a lot of pressure for her to sex it up.

I’ve based more than one character after some aspect of her or her character on Wizards of Waverly Place.

Today’s Monday Muse is a BA of a man who also happened to be our 26^th President. Wikipedia says he is noted for his “cowboy persona and robust masculinity.”

During a re-election campaign, Theodore Roosevelt was shot just before giving a speech.

And continued to give the 90 minute speech! While blood stained his shirt.

He knew that, since he was not coughing up blood, the bullet hadn’t pierced his lung and so he refused requests that he go immediately to the hospital.

It was soon discovered that a glasses case and the 50 page speech manuscript in his pocket helped absorb some of the bullet’s speed so the bullet lodged in three inches of chest muscle.

In case you’re curious, Roosevelt did not win the election that year.

Other awesome things about this story:

• Henry F. Cochems, Chairman of the Progressive Party speaker’s bureau, and Elbert Martin, Roosevelt’s stenographer tackled the assassin, disarmed him, and held him until police could respond.
• Taft and Wilson, his election opponents, stopped their campaigning while he was in the hospital.

If only we could see that kind of courage and class in today’s elections.

You can learn more about Teddy Roosevelt at the Wikipedia page.

I seriously don’t know how a single human body can hold this much talent.

Not representative of his talent

Everything he does is so freaking fantastic it confounds me.

He defies expectations. As NY Magazine put it: “Neil Patrick Harris used to be an underage doctor on TV. Now he’s another Hollywood first: an out gay actor who can host award shows, play a womanizer, walk the red carpet with his boyfriend, and then get cast in movies as a straight dad. Neat trick.” Oh yeah, he’s a magician too. For real.

Who would have ever thought this

would have turned into this?

Yeah, I chose this week’s Monday Muse for a completely different reason than last week’s. Let’s see if you can figure out what that reason is…

Got an idea?

How could you not be inspired by that?!

I don’t really know anything about him, personally, but his character on Criminal Minds is a very sweet knight-in-shining-armor type.

Oh, doing the research for this one was fun. Did I mention Monday Muse was just an excuse for me to spend some time every week reading about/looking at people I like?

Allison Scagliotti is an actress who is most known from Drake & Josh and from Warehouse 13. She’s every bit as spunky and talented as her character on the SyFy channel show. She also plays guitar and sings; check out “Where Is My Mind” from WH13:



She’s an unapologetic feminist

and supporter of human rights in general

And she’s just plain adorable.

Not to mention, she plays a strong woman who is fun, confident and hella smart. On television. I don’t know about y’all, but I’d like to see more of those types of roles.

It’s no secret: Mondays kind of suck. I’ve been wanting to do a Monday blog post feature to combat that for a while and have come up with an idea!

Starting next Monday, I will be featuring a Monday Muse every week. This could be someone that inspires me in writing, in my career, in relationships, spiritually, or in life in general.

… and that’s really the only guideline. Some posts may be deep, featuring profound inspirations the likes of Gandhi and some may be the shallow “oh boy, isn’t he gorgeous” kind of posts. It could be a person who’s living or dead, real or fictional, famous or obscure, human or animal

And I would like to invite you to join me! I will schedule my posts to go up at midnight EST every Monday so you can come here anytime Monday and leave your link in the comments to share your Monday Muse post with everyone else!

Also, I made this cool badge for you to use in your Monday Muse posts! You can link it back to my Monday Muse page, explaining what it’s all about.