Livin' a Life of Lyrics

I don't know about you, but for many a word or phrase I hear spoken, I hear a corresponding song or lyric in my head.

Examples.

1. In line at the cafeteria -
   
   Calzone distributing guy: "How many?"
   
   Man ordering calzone: "Just one."
   
   Inside my head: ONE singular sensation /every little step he takes /One thrilling combination / every move that he makes /One smile and suddenly nobody else will do; /you know you'll never be lonely with you know who. (The Chorus Line finale)
   
   
2. At work, all chills and headache, my head on the desk -
   
   Ruth: "You okay?"
   
   Me: "Mm-mmm."
   
   Ruth (touching my forehead, then cheek): "You have a fever."
   
   Inside my head: you give meFEVER /when you kiss me /Fever when you hold me tight /Fever! /In the morning /Fever all through the night (Peggy Lee, You Give Me Fever)

In a similar way, I can often "hear" music playing-- music that matches my mood, or the atmosphere, or the events at hand. It's as if my brain is playing the soundtrack to my life in real time, as I live it.

Examples.

1. Driving around LA, all smiles and love and sunshine:
   
   Show me show me show me how you do that trick /The one that makes me scream she said /The one that makes me laugh she said /And threw her arms around my neck /Show me how you do it /And I promise you I promise that /I’ll run away with you /I’ll run away with you /.../You’re just like a dream! /You're just like a dream. (The Cure, Just Like Heaven)
   
   
2. Laying in bed, feeling very acutely the pains of illness and abandoned alone-ness:
   
   Well I don't expect /the world to move underneath me /but for God's sake /could you try? /.../Where is your heart? /What I really want is to believe you /Is it so hard to give me what I need /I want your heart to bleed /That's all I'm asking for...(Kelly Clarkson, Where Is Your Heart)
   

family: it's pretty much everything

During downtime today at work, I read this article in the Times, about "single mothers by choice"-- the phenomenon of single 30-something professional women flocking to sperm banks to complete the dream of career, Mr. Right & the perfect family, just in jumbled order: "If I had to choose today between becoming a mom or finding the perfect man and I could only have one today, I would choose becoming a mom. And hope that I have my lifetime to find the other," one says. The phenomenon is very telling of the consequences of womens' expanding roles in society. We love to work, and we love our independence. But we still feel the calling to be childbearers, nurturers. So we do what we can to balance it all. But is catalog-ordering half of our childrens' DNA really the picket-fence lives we've always envisioned for ourselves? If we're not going to be happy unless we have families, shouldn't we reshuffle our priority lists a bit? ...I was slightly saddened and unsettled for the rest of my time in lab.

Time passed, and I set up an overnight reaction at around 4pm, leaving me with nothing else to do. So I went home extremely early and happened to catch the tail end of Oprah [I could go on forever about Oprah (I'm not the biggest fan), but I won't digress]. Today's show was about "America's Poor", and included guest correspondence spots by Anderson Cooper and Maria Shriver. They interviewed people living in poverty in various areas across the United States. Most were single mothers who rely on food stamps, shelters, and hand-outs for their and their childrens' survival. Maria Shriver asked each what the hardest part her life was. Strong and steady as steel when answering all other questions, each woman broke down as she answered: "I wish I could give my kids what they want. I brought them into this world, and it's my responsibility to clothe them, feed them, give them an education. I wish I could do it better." But when asked if they felt "poor", they said no-- each of the women answered that she would never feel destitute as long as she had her family's love.

It was the most striking juxtaposition, really: the rich who desperately shell out thousands for some semblance of family, and the families who have nothing but. Both so tragic in disparate ways...

I guess the lesson to be learned is: in the end, it's all about family. I just hope I'm lucky enough to fall somewhere in between the extremes I saw today.

Pieces, Pieces, Pieces of Me...

There was a guy doing free weights by the mats at the gym today. He was probably in his early thirties, around 6'2", 225 pounds. He looked like Kwame from the first (and only good) season of the Apprentice, only more athletic looking. He was also unabashedly singing along very loudly to Ashlee Simpson's "Pieces of Me", which was playing over the speakers. People were sorta snickering, but it made me smile; I was doing it, too-- singing along. I thought to myself, he must be in love. When you're in love, you sing out loud like nobody's listening. Or-- like everyone's listening, and you just don't care. All you really feel is the intense medley of emotions that comes with knowing: I have the best freaking boyfriend anyone could and has and will ever ask for.

Matches, Poo, and You: a lesson in everyday chemistry

I'm an inherently curious person. Sometimes, when I'm eating something, I'll suddenly wonder where it came from and what it looked like in its original form. Like... hmm. I wonder what asparagus looks like when it's growing in the ground. Well, look at that! Asparagus grows out of the ground looking like someone took it off your dinner plate and stuck the stalks vertically into some soil! So I guess you can understand that Wikipedia and Google Image are two of my favorite favorite places to surf (with the exception of Huntington Beach and North Shore, O'ahu, hee). They help me stop wondering, and start knowing. And boy, do I wonder a lot.

The latest thing I've looked into is something I've wondered for a long time. It's quite a nugget of useless if magical scientific knowledge... Now. Many of you (by which I mean maybe one or two of the handful of you who actually read this) may be members of the light-a-match-after-you-Number-Two community. *Handshake* I, too, am such a member. How does it work? How is it that the act of lighting a match makes the smell of poop disappear? I recently went on a quest to find out. It was an entertaining quest in which I discovered lots of things, like the presence of hundreds of message boards filled with questions and comments about poop. There's a whole community of poop-obsessed out there. It's thriving, I tell you. It's quite something. Strangely enough, I couldn't actually find a direct answer to my question. Maybe I wasn't doing a good thorough search, but I tend to think my internet search abilities are pretty strong... Anyway, this is what I've come up with:

First, I asked,
Q: Why is poop smelly?
A: The culprit is hydrogen sulfide [H₂S(g)], the inorganic gas that also gives rotten eggs and farts their offensive reputations. It's produced (among other compounds, including sulfur-containing compounds) by our friendly intestinal bacteria as they help us digest. An interesting factoid about hydrogen sulfide: it burns to give the gas sulfur dioxide[SO₂(g)], which smells like a burnt match.

2H₂S(g)+3O₂(g)--->2SO₂(g)+2H₂O(l)

This leads us to...
Q: How does the burning of a match lead to the oxidation of hydrogen sulfide to sulfur dioxide?
A: The heads of matches contain, along with glue and color and stuff, sulfur and oxidizing agents like potassium chlorate. The striking surface on the box contains red phosphorus, as well as coloring and stuff to provide friction. When struck, the heat from the friction of match+surface causes a some red phosphorus to become white phosphorus vapour, which burns spontaneously in air and initiates the decomposition of the potassium chlorate. This liberates oxygen [O₂(g)]. The sulfur ignites and lights the wood of the match.

So for the overall
Q: How is it that lighting a match = poopysmell-be-gone?
A: Lighting a match causes the smelly poop gas to burn, converting it to another gas, which smells like burnt match, which is what the bathroom already smells like, because there's a burnt match in the room.

Hooray. Thus ends your lesson in the chemistry of poop & matches. *curtsy*

Just Wonderin'

...whatever happened to that clothing brand, Fubu?

The Gym Whore Gets Fat (based on a true story)

I have managed to succeed, thus far, in maintaining my Gym Whore title. I am still miles from regaining my title of Buff Jess, but Gym Whore shall do for now. It feels great to be working out again, and I've already started seeing the results in terms of tightness in my stomach/legs/arms/pretty much everywhere. But the soreness can be slightly debilitating sometimes. Like when I have to grab a step-stool at work to reach items on shelves because I can't quite lift my arms over my head...

I wasn't Gym Whore this weekend, though. But have no fear, it was for a good reason: I was getting fat with Eric. If eating were an academic endeavor, we'd be PhD's. Oh, fo shizzle.

We set out early Saturday afternoon on a quest to buy the necessary groceries for a yet-unspecified gourmet meal, which we were to cook that night. We're ambitious and slightly overconfident in our cooking ability like that. Uhhuh. Anyway, along the way, we dropped into Devil's Alley, where we brunched on 1) corn pancakes w/apple butter, strawberries, blueberries & bananas, and 2) chorizo, cheddar & jalapeno scrambled eggs (yum!). We then found ourselves in Chinatown, where we of course couldn't resist dropping into a bakery for some goodies. We finally made it to Whole Foods, where we giddily piddled ourselves over our dinner menu of choice: seared yellowfin tuna topped with alfalfa sprouts and thinly sliced shiitake mushrooms on a bed of homemade garlic mashed potatoes, drizzled with a soy-sesame+wasabi vinaigrette, served with a side of roasted asparagus. And some Black Velvets.

We dimmed the lights, put out some candles and flowers, and ate up. It was freakin' orgasmically good. And I never say anything is freakin' orgasmically good. I usually just say "yum!"

The old CurryNight (Karina) crew came over, and we laughed a lot. Then we finished off a pretty f*ckin' perfect day with CapoGiro. Yep. I do loves me my dessert.

All in all, it was a pretty f*ckin' perfect weekend. And now, tastebuds happy and my stomach in rest-mode, I'll happily return to my Gym Whore life.

Happy spring break to all the crazy college kids out there. Have fun, but heed this warning: neither drunkenly-acquired injury nor second-degree sunburn is a fun souvenir. And neither is venereal disease, so just be careful while you party it up.