…from the wikipedia article on “disgust”:

Huntington’s disease

Many patients suffering from Huntington’s disease, a genetically transmitted progressive neurodegenerative disease, are unable to recognize expressions of disgust in others and also don’t show reactions of disgust to foul odors or tastes.^[6] The inability to recognize disgust in others appears in carriers of the Huntington gene before other symptoms appear.^[7]

Hot Wawa Cashier(tm): good morning.

me, handing over my requisite coffee and gum, plus two donuts, which i only buy because he refuses to charge me for the coffee and i can’t in good conscience take it without handing over a minimum sum money for something: morning. how are you?

HWC: good. better than yesterday. and how are you?

me: okay.

HWC: just okay?

me: i think i’m getting a cold.

HWC: noooo, you can’t do that. fight it!

me: i think it’s too late.

HWC: no! what you have to do is, as soon as you think you might be getting one, you have to load up on vitamin C!

me, nodding toward my purchases and giving my best whatchoo talkin bout, willis face: that’s what the donuts are for.

HWC, looking pained: i think maybe you should take a nutrition class instead of learning about bugs. this is comfort food.

me: what, i don’t deserve a little comfort in my illness?

HWC: you’re not that ill. you can still walk.

me: for the moment…

HWC: fine, whatever… feel better. jerk.

ragbag:

the coolidge effect

the sum total of everything that i know about calvin coolidge, the 30th president of the you-ess-aye is from his interaction with the quipster dorothy parker. she sat next to the famously quiet president at a dinner once and said, “mr. coolidge, i’ve made a bet against a fellow who said it was impossible to get more than two words out of you.” his famous reply: “you lose.”

so you will excuse my shock when it came to my attention that calvin coolidge has a sexual phenomenon named after him. the coolidge effect states that “males show continuously high sexual performance given the introduction of new receptive partners” and has been observed in nearly every species in which it has been tested.

so what has calvin “silent cal” coolidge to do with sexual promiscuity? here’s what »

During a tour of a chicken farm, Mrs. Coolidge asked the farmer how often a rooster can mount a hen. The farmer replied, “About 40 times a day,” whereupon the first lady replied, “Please tell this to my husband.” After the farmer conveyed that information to the president, Coolidge asked whether the rooster mounted the same hen 40 times and was informed that it mounted 40 different hens. Upon learning this information, Coolidge replied, “Please tell this to my wife.”

For some reason, I love the idea of fan fiction. But I think I want to write a whole series called Industrial Fan Fiction. The first one would be a Raymond Chandler knockoff:

Marlowe came into the room. The lights were off, but the blinds were open. The window, too, and there was no breeze. A…

 i’m considering this my el-oh-el for the day. 

…is going batshit crazy and stabbing the girl who can’t go three minutes without mentioning Her Research.*

i’ve decided not to continue with my pollination ecology class.  for weeks now, i’ve been bemoaning the fact that i’m not learning anything (it’s one of those idiotic courses where Many Thoughtful Questions are asked, and no actual answers are given.  our instructor is like a sit-com psychologist, nodding and smiling and saying “mm-hm” and “so why do you think that is?” a lot, and offering nothing.)  but the last week or two, it’s been making me actively unhappy and stressed beyond what can even be considered normal for someone of my admittedly tight-wiring, and then i remembered:  i don’t have to do this.  i can quit.  it’s okay, because i’m doing it for myself and if myself says you know what i hate this let’s bag it… well, okay then.  let’s bag it.  i’ve worn the dented crown of quitterhood before, and i survived. 

the upside of being down a class - besides the fact that ever since last friday afternoon, when i made the conscious decision to unburden myself of it, i’ve felt insanely relieved - is that i can now divert all that attention and energy to all the other crap i need to do, like plan the orchestra’s fundraising event, and please don’t ask how i got that job, because i am absolutely clueless myself.  of all the board members, i believe that i’m the least qualified to plan and organize a fundraiser.  so obviously they gave it to me.

the other thing that needs to be dealt with is my throat.  i saw the otolaryngologist (<— and i have yet to pronounce that word fully and correctly on the first try, in any conversation where it’s come up, btw) last week, and we decided that i will have a tonsillectomy, at the horrifying age of 36.  i mean, i make jokes about how old i am and all, but in this case, i actually am fucking ancient, and it will make a difference.  but:  i think it should be done, he thinks it should be done, and so it will be done.  i like him, and i trust him - in no small part because he was straight with me about how much it’s going to suck, while maintaining confidence of a good outcome when it’s all over.  so i’ve left a message with the surgical coordinator, and i’m planning to do it in june, when my mother is taking both my kids to california, and at least i can cross “house full of aggravation” off the list of things that would serve to make my recovery even more painful.

finally, i have to call a guy about some bees.  a couple hives didn’t make it through the winter, so i need to get my grimy little hands on some more.  i told bill that if i’m incapacitated with recovery in late june, he might need to do a little beekeeping for me, to keep things running smoothly.  he was not amused.

*actually, that wouldn’t be so bad either.  maybe i can do both.

lettherebeblogs:

Hit it

 the coolest president in history just got that much cooler.

eatsleepdraw:

Support cannibalism! By http://dokino.tumblr.com/

 fucking brilliant.

so i volunteer as the music librarian for my orchestra.  i also, in an unrelated capacity, authored the member feedback survey that was sent to the musicians earlier today; one of the questions asks people to rate the effectiveness of various volunteers and staff members, including me.

i just took a look at the responses that have come in so far.  one of the respondents skipped that particular item, noting that “i don’t use the librarian.”

i el-oh-elled at that, and am seriously left wondering what, exactly, this person thinks other people are doing with me.

dyirbal is an australian aboriginal language currently spoken by about five people. it is famous among linguists chiefly for the peculiar way in which it categorises its nouns. get a hot load of this peculiar scheme:

i - animate objects and men
ii - women, dangerous things and exceptional animals
iii - everything edible that is not meat
iv - things not classified in other categories

class i contains words like: rainbows, boomerangs, and storms. in addition to women and fire, class ii contains bandicoots, water, and scorpions. edible objects that aren’t meat in class iii include cigarettes.

i actually fail to see a problem with this, bahaa.  i think english should follow the example put forth here, specifically the separation of men and women into different noun classes; maybe then we could lose “words” like wimmin and herstory. 

plus it’s just funny to group men and rainbows together.  makes all their chest-pounding far less effective at a very basic level.