Did you miss me?

I missed you, blog readers. All four of you.

When my computer crashed, it gave me the opportunity to re-evaluate my life. Last Monday, my laptop rested in the corner, a wisp of smoke trailing from its lower lip-- a sexy throwback to the good old days of Marlboro advertising. It was a cool cowboy and I was a scared heifer. I realized then, that I had come to rely on my computer not only for random Google searches and self-obsessed Facebooking, but as a scheduled distraction from everything else in my life.

So I cleaned my apartment. Then I made a mess and cleaned it again. I watched a really cool program about Africanized bees on Animal Planet. I fell asleep at 10 every night because there was nothing better to do.

The really sad part about not having my computer was that, every so often, I would think "Well, since I can't do any work right now, I'm going to shop online!" and I'd be very excited for a few minutes before remembering that online shopping also requires a computer. I am a pathetic, pathetic girl.

Anyway, I have a working computer now. All the rage I felt about terrible customer service and unreliable products has dissipated into a methadone-like*, soothing calm. I spent four hours last night shopping for clothes online and not buying anything. Oh, it feels good to give into addictions.

*I've never taken methadone, but I've listened to a lot of music that references it, which obviously makes me qualified to talk about it as if I have first hand experience. Obviously.

SAD NEWS

My hard drive is fried like okra. It's pretty hard for me to blog from work because I like to blog in my pajamas while I eat brownies -- and my lab lacks both key components. My new hard drive will be here Monday! You can read the archives if you miss me.

I have a lot to say about the quality of Hewlett Packard computers, but this is a family blog* so I will keep my negative, expletive-laced opinions to myself for now**.

*No, it's not.

**Until the next post.

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.