Take your breast guess

Yesterday at work, a couple of girls and I pondered what it was, exactly, that made men like boobs so much. (We were looking at pictures of Scarlett Johansson.) The classical answer to this question is that men don't have boobs, so they're fascinated by them... or sometimes, you'll get the evo-devo style assertion that large breasts indicate a woman who is "nurturing." Bullllllllllshit.

I'll believe that the presence of breasts, as well as other feminine body shapes, is a logical feature of the male attraction protocol. This fact does not quite explain to me why the brain would rank larger breasts above regular sized breasts, however-- to me, the whole purpose of breast-attraction would be to discern breasts-versus-no-breasts. As far as I know, other primates don't obsess over huge bazookas the way we do, so can I blame society? Please please please?

HERE IS MY PROBLEM:
Girls like to say that men like breasts because they don't have them. That makes every girl feel better about their boobs, right? It divides us into the Haves and Have Nots. It implies, "Any boob is a good boob." Boob communism isn't real, girls. I barely have any boobs (34 A, on a good day), and I'm not obsessed with breasts. I think they are gross. They are veiny and wiggly and weird. They stretch out sweaters. What's the mystery? Cow udders are more interesting, if you ask me.

I also don't buy that men think women with big breasts are nurturing. Who has ever looked at a picture of Salma Hayek and moaned, "Oh, I can just picture her nursing my offspring!" And the women pictured in JUGS probably don't inspire family yearnings in anyone. I wouldn't want MY baby dangling off some basketball-proportioned mammary gland while mommy posed, glistening, on the hood of a car. But maybe that's just me, I'm weird.

I'll never have pornstar boobs. My breasts have been the same size since 7th grade. To lament my physical inadequacies, I wrote you this song. Okay, I actually just rewrote the lyrics to "The Way We Were." I don't have quite enough freetime to compose an original soundtrack reflecting on puberty.

Mammaries light the corners of my mind
Bouncy flesh-colored mammaries, that's the way they were
Scattered laundry, unmentionables left behind
Training bras remind me of the way they were

I'll remember
Whenever I put on a sweater
The way they were...
The way they still are...

HEY MADONNA

HOW ABOUT

YOU PUT ON

SOME

GODDAMN PANTS?

Mystery Post of Mystery

Sorry for the recent lack of updates-- I have been preoccupied by things that I don't write about on this blog. Does anyone have any hilariously bitter sentiments to share about Valentine's Day (or President's Day, for that matter) ?

I had a wonderful weekend in which I thought about science less than one times. Do thoughts about science occur in quantal units, or did I think about science in a fraction quantity? MYSTERY

My weekend preoccupation bought me The Sound and The Fury because I've been wanting to re-read it for the longest time. How will I read Faulkner when I'm drowning in a sea of papers about synaptic mechanisms and estrogen-mediated plasticity? MYSTERY

I discovered I have an allergy this weekend. I'm not going to tell you what it is. MYSTERY

Dudes, I'm working on some more interesting thoughts. Ponder up those mysteries.

Friends in otherwise annoying places

I've got a lot of Facebook friends that I've never met or even talked to. The number probably stretches into the 200s. This is because I went on a themed Facebook-friending spree as a freshman in college in lieu of studying for a calculus final. I don't have anything in common with them, but I actually love reading about their lives. Some of them are doing really amazing things, some of them have become beautiful, and some of them are coping with major crap amazingly well. One of my Facebook-only friends is on a VH1 reality show called "For the Love of Ray J," which is basically a knock-off of "Flava of Love" -- but slightly less trashy, if you can believe that.

Tonight I was cooking (SOMETIMES I COOK, OKAY?) and I noticed that "For the Love of Ray J" was playing. Naturally, I decided to eschew every one of my cultural principles and watch it. (Almost any excuse to abandon principles is a good one.) Here are some things I observed while slicing leeks:

1. Ray J is kinda sexy (but who is he? A musician of some sort?)
   
2. They are scraping the bottom of barrel looking for hot girls to be on reality dating shows (exception: my Facebook-only friend, who is gorgeous)
   
3. All these women are certainly only trying to wedge their foot in the doorway of the entertainment industry
4. Reality television is totally fake!

None of these statements are revolutionary, obviously, but I feel like it's my duty to tell the world (or, the six people who read this blog) that my Facebook-only friend participated in this purported "dating competition" in spite of the fact that she's been serious with the same guy for years. What! A scandal, you say!? Not on a high quality VH1 reality program!? This week she was almost eliminated because Ray J sensed she might be less available than advertised... but she was able to bamboozle him with her feminine wiles to survive another week. Next week's preview foretells even more drama. She'll get a lot of exposure for her modelling career from this little stint, no matter how it turns out. Good for her!

Bamboozling men? Bamboozling the Man? I guess we do have something in common-- other than our love of Ray J, of course. But LADIES, who doesn't love Ray J?

Correction

I recently stated in this post that one cannot subsist on lentils alone. Some very un-thorough investigation (i.e. googling "on lentils alone" and reading a page summary without visiting the website) compels me to inform you all that you can indeed survive on a diet of only lentils. Ghandi did it.

I'm sure you'll all be very surprised, as I was, to learn that I do not possess a caliber of willpower comparible to Ghandi's. My bad, guys. I'm going to eat some chinese take-out and marinate in bitter tears while I contemplate my failures.

Snark

Article: "Palin rails against pathetic anonymous bloggers"

Summary: To retain her status as a mostly irrelevant symbol of macho-feminine folksy anti-intelligence, Sarah Palin continues to give interviews in which she embarrasses people with vaginas everywhere. "I wanted to be a journalist, but I'd have to go to Bristol, CT to do that-- that's so far away! So I had a baby and named her Bristol instead!"

Related article: "Twisby reads Palin articles, asks bartender to leave the bottle"

Summary: Much like Sarah Palin, Elyse Twisby hunts her produce in the wild supermarket aisles of the southern grocery chain Harris Teeter, taking deep pleasure in decerebrating mushrooms and tearing into the still-warm flesh of a freshly baked eggplant. "I wanted to be a professor of Russian literature," she says, applying an umpteeth layer of lipstick. "But that would have been pretty hard, so I drink vodka instead."

Ad obnoxium

Lately I have been a lot more irritated than usual. A variety of factors have probably combined to create this effect... Last week's unprecedented eight days of migraine, probably the effect of some combination of small lifestyle alterations, attests to my recent neurological sensitivity. The fact that I'm surrounded by females all the time in my new lab also makes me a little edgy.

What's sort of hilarious is that I'm finding myself being annoyed to the point of almost rage by things that happened too long ago to be of any importance, or things that I consider myself a douchebag for being angry about. This is why, today, I bring you a list called "Ridiculous Things that Annoy Me: 2/3/09 Edition"

• People who walk slowly. EVERYONE in the South walks like they are in an art museum, gazing contemplatively at a Monet. Girls walk in groups so it's hard to pass them on the sidewalk, so I become trapped behind them and forced to listen to their inane logic about why some boy can't commit, or how cold the 60 degree weather is.
• People who sit next to me on the bus and impede my ability to get off at my stop. There is an empty row over there! Get away from me!! You smell bad!!!
  
• Women. You need to toughen up, ladies, and stop acting like delicate southern belles.
• Men. Desperation is irritating. Pretending to be considerate so I will feel obligated to hang out with you is more irritating.
  
• The price of produce-- $2 for an avocado? What the fuck!?
• Weather that is too cold for just a sweatshirt but too warm for a peacoat. I am from Chicago. The central limit theorem does not apply to temperatures there.
  
• FROGS THAT WILL NOT MATE. Their whole brain is just designed to help them have sex more efficently. It's like when you grab a Kleenex and blow right through it-- what's the goddamn point?
• Polymerase chain reaction.
• My parents. I'm not sure if it's because they are exhibiting every sign I can recognise for early dementia, or because they've been like that since I was five so I know it's just their personality.
  
• House (the TV show). The character "13" needs to die. I am going to quit watching.
  
• Waiting for food to cook. I AM HUNGRY NOW, DAMNIT.

Today's irate rant brought to you by the temp workers in the Mood Dept. of my brain.

Migraines

Migraines! If this were caveman times, I would be left for dead by my family group, if I hadn't already spared myself the pain by throwing myself off a cliff. Eight days of pain makes me a totally useless human being. I can't write until this thing goes away... I can barely drag myself out of bed. What a pathetic way to live.