It's not how old you are, it's how old you hear.

Created by Train Horn

My ears are leading the life of a much younger set of hairy fluid filled tubes. The Mosquito [above] is easy, and only buys me a couple of years at best. This nice little range of tones proved that I've got sensitivity up to at least 18 kHz. And thanks to this handy graphic from the NY Times, I figure that places me somewhere around a typical Miley Cyrus fan. Unfortunately, it does not allow me to compare myself to an average 25-29 year-old.

Maybe it's just a result of increased aldosterone production, but I like to think it's a reflex of a broader leitmotif running throughout my genetics. One thing I know for sure is that it relates to my evolved mandibular situation: no wisdom teeth, one 12 year-old molar. Take that tooth decay!

In conclusion:

Vision: perfect. 

Hearing: acute as a fennec fox.

Taste: refined.

Smell: untested.

Touch: no, thank you.

Teeth: 25

poll by twiigs.com

It's not a look, it's a lifestyle.

I've made some bad hair choices in my life. The long flowing locks of middle school and the bowl cut of high school stand out. The pony hawk is not one of them.

In hindsight, I wish I hadn't googled 'pudendum'.

Hello, Ego.

Excerpt from The Badger Herald online ShoutOuts page (it didn't make it into the print edition today):


Sorry girls, it's here to stay.

Phone Redox

I was talking to Jobonga last night. During the course of our conversation, in which we both continued to claim that we had nothing to talk about, a couple of familiar topics came up.

1. Scrabulous: This is a big part of our lives right now. I am fairly proud of my record in Scrabulous. Of the 30 games I've completed I have only lost 1, to one Jessica Hindman. Jessica is studying non-fiction writing at Columbia and has the dubious honor of being one of only 2 people in the world that have incited my wrath during a Scrabble game (the other of course being Ms. Moschenross and her defiantly errant use of QUO ). On the other hand, I think I'm probably the only one to have done that to Joanna, I mean jobonga, with the infamous JANITOR play back in 2002. There was no illegality involved in that though, just coercion.

Anyway, this is the final board of my one loss (yes, I take pictures of my Scrabulous boards, just like my Scrabble boards). And it is quite possibly the most amazing scrabble board I have ever been a part of. The center horizontal wasn't crossed until the last 4 plays of the game. Stressful. Most importantly, notice I only lost by 3 points.


2. Ugly People: I saw a cute girl making out with a shockingly ugly boy yesterday on campus. It happened right in front of me and their visual disparity stopped me in my tracks.

3. Sweaters: Joanna still hasn't provided an accurate count of her knits, but after taking stock of my closet this morning I feel much better about my sweater position.

Impatient Sweaters

I thought last week would be my last Sweater thursday without my camera back. It wasn't. I postponed pictures this morning hoping the camera would show up with the mail today; it didn't. So the old camera had to be broken out again.

On a more exciting note, this morning I put this sweater on and looked in the mirror. To my surprise I was greeted by a few chest hairs poking out of my collar. To the best of my knowledge this is the first time I have noticed this phenomenon on myself. I have photographed them for you.

It's a Small World After All

You may remember that I had a run in with the shits right around New Year's. It was a terrible experience, one that only Darcy really got to appreciate it, and in the next few days my whole family got to have their go with the Notorious Norovirus also. I didn't really think much about this until I read an article in the NY Times a couple of weeks ago in which the author mentioned a bout of violent diarrhea that swept through her family a few days after New Year's.

Then yesterday, while catching up on my Time Magazine reading I came across this Postcard: Pakistan feature, in which the reporter mentions having violent diarrhea on New Year's Eve. A quick googling turned up outbreaks in Britain and Boston also around New Year's. That brings the tally of known affected areas to Philadelphia, NYC, Boston, the countries of England and Wales, and Lahore Pakistan. I find that sort of mind blowing. Think about trying to get something to happen in these places all at the same time on purpose. That would be difficult. But infecting the whole world with norovirus seems to be no biggie fries. And then on top of that, 2 different journalist, writing for 2 different publications, both of which I happen to read, mention it in articles they write. How often do journalist talk about their own gastrointestinal health in the first place?

Anyway, as far as I know, I was the first to start shitting. And I happened to have traveled to both NYC and Boston on or around New Year's. So maybe I'm patient zero. Did anyone else have the runs over New Year's? Did your friends or family? Or, have you read about any other journalists that did? I would like to start compiling this data. Maybe I'll make a map out of it.

CT is the Shits

Yesterday I began my traveling for New Years. That meant SEPTA to Trenton, NJ Transit to Penn Station, the 1 train and the shuttle to Grand Central, and Metro-North to New Haven, CT. Then Darcy's car to Hartford. This would have been made more enjoyable if I did not have a raucous case of the shits. I don't really know where they came from, but late Saturday night I started shooting liquid from my ass. I almost canceled the whole thing, but I thought I felt better Sunday morning. I was wrong about that though. 

Eventually I made it to Darcy's apartment and Oliver came and said hi. I felt a little bit better. But not better enough to order more than a salad at Plan B. This was embarrassing. After "dinner" I had to make another trip to the littler shitter's room. This resulted in a detailed conversation about exactly how things went in there with Darcy and her doctor friends. Later we were supposed to go see "No Country for Old Men", but I had to put the kibosh on that. Instead we went home, made tea, and watched "40 Year Old Virgin". The good news is that around 5:00 AM this morning my fever broke. And Oliver came back to snuggle.

The Development

For those who really wanted to see: Poison Ivy , but don't click if you don't want to see some nasty business.

The pics really don't capture the full scale of what was going on with my body actually, but they get the idea across. Perhaps one of the most disturbing aspects of the whole thing is how good scratching can feel. I can usually control myself by preemptively applying balm, but every so often a case of the itchies comes over me and there's nothing to do but scratch it. When this happens I go slightly crazy. Once it starts I can't stop it and the itching gets harder and faster and better. Then I realize that I've started to break the skin and I've been moaning in pleasure while doing it. Weird. You can see the direct result of one of those sexual itch sessions on my lower leg in the pictures above. That one occurred while Martin and I were waiting for a bus last night. I'm pretty sure it was (rightfully) making him uncomfortable.

Where the Yellow Pus Flows

Today was a day of mixed blessings. This morning I came to the realization that I have fat kid arms. This is a result of the gnarly poison ivy I have on my arms right now (and knees and ankles). I've moved past the isolated red bumps and now the arms are a swollen mess of red blotches and pustules. I have been wearing long sleeves this week to keep this delightful sight out of view, and so nobody accuses me of passing them syphilis. For anyone who is interested I would not recommend bushwacking your way through a thicket on the Jersey Shore. Even if your older brother dares you to. If you do you will end up with arm cankles. Like I do. And they are arguably the worst variety of cankles.

Later in the day a FedEx package arrived. This was the good part of my day. Last weekend my cell plotzed, and in a big way. Luckily it wasn't my fault and Verizon sent out a new one. Unluckily it was Labor Day weekend and it didn't get mailed until yesterday. But, now I not only have a cell phone again, I have a new cell phone. I now must pause for a vigorous rubbing of the arms. Mazel Tov.

Mutant Eye Brow Found

This morning while brushing my teeth I noticed an eyebrow hair jauntily extending an extra half inch from my head than all the others. I think I've seen this guy before and pulled him out, obviously he is not to be dissuaded. This makes me think that my eyebrows are destined to attain the proportions of my dad's and are not actually the hybrid of my paternal and (non-existent) maternal brows that I have always claimed them to be. More importantly, what will my fingers look like in 10 years?