Just as I was thinking I was dying to have lunch at this spot, I thought it ain't going to be a "five-star wilderness" for v. long if we have to helicopter to it.
Heck. Why can't I be like the Repugnicans and not care? Frickin' "do unto others" gene. Grr.
Does this count?
Dur!
Scientists have suspected for decades that exercise, particularly regular aerobic exercise, can affect the brain. But they could only speculate as to how. Now an expanding body of research shows that exercise can improve the performance of the brain by boosting memory and cognitive processing speed. Exercise can, in fact, create a stronger, faster brain.
Fine, I'll do an extra rotation on each foot of the ankle circling. Jeez.
[Photo courtesy of PEP UP YOUR LIFE: A FITNESS BOOK FOR MID-LIFE AND OLDER PERSONS from your federal gubmint.]
What seems like a childish game is actually a complicated theory governed by many, many important subrules.
That Dropped Doughnut: How Soon, and How Often, Will It Come Back Up?
The beauty of the five-second rule is that it is utterly pliable and that it is not about food so much as it is about yearning and disgust and gastronomic history and evolutionary wiring and the implicit social contract we make when we break (and drop) bread with other human beings.
Following the rule requires understanding its intricacies. "I would never eat a pickle," says Anaiah Grissom, 9, "not even after one second." She also would not eat a hot dog, a burger or a piece of broccoli, because those get dirty really fast. A Chips Ahoy, according to Anaiah, can last up to 15 seconds, and Pop-Tarts, like, never get dirty.
Indoor floors are better than outdoors, but grass is better than carpet.
The tastier the treat, the longer it can be left on the floor. Cake tastes better than cookies, though, and gets germy before cookies. You can almost never use the five-second rule on cake. Parents will, however, employ it on any foodstuff with a high per-pound price. You pick that up and eat it! You know how much that cost?
If you spend your last dollar on something, the germs will give you a break and leave it alone for an extra 10 seconds, or until you can pick it back up.
Ew. I would NEVER eat anything that fell on a public floor. In my germ-averse life, the 5-second rule is downgraded to three seconds. That extra 2 seconds may as well equal rolling one's food in a vacuum cleaner bag that's just been used to hoover up a barn floor.
To while away the hours at the bus stop, my sister and I used to engage in gross-out fantasies wherein we upped the ante on licking various vile substances off a sidewalk. The points of negotiation centered on duration of tongue-to-substance vs. ingestion of said substance and access to Coke and/or an ambulance. Coke loomed large in these negotiations as it's a well-known fact that Coke will remove all traces of anything on Earth. Ambulances? Eh. 911's a Joke.
[Photo: Meret Oppenheim's Surrealist misstresspiece "Object."]
Holy Hannah, where have you been all my life, magic oxytocin spray??
A nasal spray to shed your shyness!
University of Zurich researchers have created a spray that can relieve people of shyness, and help them socialise with others.
The spray is very easy to use, and an individual can boost self-confidence just by squirting it up the nose.
The researchers say that the spray harnesses the powers of a feel-good hormone called oxytocin, a neurotransmitter in the brain that is involved in social recognition and bonding.
The mammalian hormone is produced naturally by the body when a person is in love, and it also induces labour in pregnant women. The spray contains a synthetic version of it, created in the laboratory.
I'm blowing my mind over here thinking of the impact this could have had on my life. Being shy isn't all bad, but it can be significantly limiting in meaningful ways. I've outgrown some of my shyness (not all), but NONE of my introversion. Oh sweet mystery of life, just to be in a quiet house w/ no phone and no commitments, alone w/ my thoughts (db and dogs okay)!
For all you extroverts out there w/ introverts in your life, I heartily recommend this fine article: Caring for Your Introvert: The Habits and Needs of a Little-Understood Group.
Seriously though, I can't get a hold of this stuff fast enough. I wonder how and who I'd be not being me. That said, does the world need more extroverts? Don't we introverts provide balance, some necessary evolutionary purpose -- like being quiet and careful observers of the world's unending wackiness and snarky commenters and sympathetic shoulders to cry on and introspective mooner-abouters? Yeah! The world does need that. I ain't changing for anybody, buddy!
[photo credit: ae @ work, wondering why work has to be so, you know, public.]
I learned today that there's a concept called "feature creep" wherein a company "improves" a much-loved product, thus rendering it, well, not as good. Very interesting discussion in the Times today as folks lament the practice and mourn long-gone favorites.
I Love It, It’s Perfect, Now It Changes.
This phenomenon, generated by market forces, media hype and twitchy retailers, creates a cycle in which products are constantly improved even if they don’t need to be.
But the truth is, many consumers bemoan the incessant rush of innovation that pushes manufacturers to tamper with products the consumers feel are already perfect.
Is there a product you loved that you can’t find anymore?
Off the top of my head, yes:
1. Saucony Jazz women's running shoes, circa 1991. Best running shoes I've had.
2. Haagen Dasz carrot cake ice cream. No, really.
3. Trader Joe's lip balm in the red & yellow tube (don't remember the name), which was the PERFECT lip balm, now discontinued.
4. Democracy in America.
[pictured: Saucony Grid Jazz 11, not an improvement over the original, though I'm sure it's a perfectly nice shoe.]
Q. What would our lives be like if we didn't have Little?
Dude!
I couldn't snap a photo of the total mess created by 1 puppy going after a small pack of annuals (that were "securely" placed in their would-be planter on top of the table), the trail of debris was so great. Dirt and plastic everywhere. Yes, those are the poor little fleurs torn asunder atop the table.
But not to worry, Spiderman helped me clean up.
Don't these shoes look like Spiderman? Is it just me? I laugh every time I look at this pic. [Careful observers will note that though there was a mess on our deck, and though it was not even 6 pm, yr humble correspondent lets nothing get in the way of her changing into her pajamas after work. NOTHING. Because that is the way I roll, people.]
First the Sopranos ends, then I break my toe.* Will the indignities never end?
*Actually, I broke my toe first, then came the Sopranos finale (sob!). On that sad topic I'll just say that I'm glad Tony didn't die. And Pauly Walnuts, for whom I always had a soft spot. Whoa!
Toe story: decided not to garden (why the urge always to put that in scare quotes?) in steel-toed boots today, and what a shame. Also, maybe it's not such a bright idea engaging in any garden-related program activities in the summer as this just makes us thirsty. And when db and I get thirsty, we get the bright idea to take a water break, momentarily putting on hold the unholy death match struggle in which we are engaged w/ our backyard.
To facilitate said water breaks, about an hour earlier I'd put a couple of water bottles in the freezer, because what is better when one is engaged in an unholy death match struggle w/ one's backyard in 90º weather than very cold water w/ ice chips in it? Nothing, friends, nothing.
So db calls out, "ae! Here you go," and lobs the water bottle to me from the deck (a well-placed lob; not his fault). Oh, I can almost taste it already, that cold, cold water. Here it comes...
Slipped right through my hands. Landed bottom edge-down w/ the full force of its weight right on my foot. If I had wanted to break my toe, I couldn't have managed a better angle. Came right in at a 45º angle -- whatta trajectory! -- like a little frozen missile.
How to describe the pain? Hmm. The kind where you go kind of deaf for a second and then all you can hear is your own breathing, deep and regular, your mind completely blank, as if you are trying to give birth to your toe -- anything to dislodge the offending body part. Just had to crouch in the grass for a few minutes making Darth Vader noises, because it would have been unseemly (not to mention ungainly) to hop around wailing and crying.
I was wearing these rubber-grippy work gloves that were neither rubbery nor grippy enough, apparently. Ech, it wasn't the gloves' fault either. It seems that I can no longer catch a half-frozen bottle of water lobbed at me from 35-ft in a perfectly reasonable arc at a perfectly reasonable speed in broad daylight when I am looking and prepared to catch it. Getting older sucks. I blame the Republicans.
P.S. It's the middle toe, and it's nice and bluey-purple. And very fat. Icing it w/ Trader Joe's Biryani rice didn't do diddly, but the tape is helping.
::pant pant pant::
Our pulses are racing, we're literally on the edge of the couch. I'm so edgy that everything's making me flinch. That's it for the Sopranos, and we're actually sad.
That's it?!?! WE WANT MORE!
Well, that's one way to make your point. But ouch.
Mo. Man Burns Books as Act of Protest.
Tom Wayne amassed thousands of books in a warehouse during the 10 years he has run his used book store, Prospero's Books. His collection ranges from best sellers like Tom Clancy's "The Hunt for Red October" and Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities," to obscure titles like a bound report from the Fourth Pan-American Conference held in Buenos Aires in 1910.
But wanting to thin out his collection, he found he couldn't even give away books to libraries or thrift shops, which said they were full. So on Sunday, Wayne began burning his books protest what he sees as society's diminishing support for the printed word.
"This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today," Wayne told spectators outside his bookstore as he lit the first batch of books. The fire blazed for about 50 minutes before the Kansas City Fire Department put it out because Wayne didn't have a permit to burn them. Wayne said next time he will get a permit.
He said he envisions monthly bonfires until his supply -- estimated at 20,000 books -- is exhausted. "After slogging through the tens of thousands of books we've slogged through and to accumulate that many and to have people turn you away when you take them somewhere, it's just kind of a knee-jerk reaction," he said. "And it's a good excuse for fun."
Wayne said he has seen fewer customers in recent years as people more often get their information from television or the Internet. He pointed to a 2002 study by the National Endowment for the Arts, that found that less than half of adult respondents reported reading for pleasure, down from almost 57 percent in 1982.
