When there's something wet and it's dripping dry, why is it that the drips come at even intervals?

Attention Harry Potter fans: The "Lorem ipsum..." text IS NOT A CLUE! Yes, it has semantic meaning if you translate it from Latin, but it is standard space filler used by designers and typesetters to see what a particular layout will look like once there's text there. That's why there was a "Do not disturb" sign on the door - because the content isn't finished yet. So please stop wasting perfectly good discussion space trying to figure out how a literal translation of lorem ipsum applies to the Potterverse!

Question: Why do people spit on the sidewalk? I don't understand this. I have never, not once in my life, been walking down the street and suddenly felt greviously overburdened by my saliva. And even if people do feel overburdened by their saliva, why would spitting it be easier than swallowing it?

Some random products I've tried lately:

1. Rimmel Gentle Eye Make Up Remover: When I use this to remove waterproof mascara, it appears to have removed it all, but it doesn't actually remove everything. Then I wake up in the morning with racoon circles under my eyes. It is very gentle, but Simply Basic eye makeup remove from Walmart is better.

2. Beringer Stone Cellars Chardonnay: This is very good, smooth and buttery, one of the best chardonnays I've had.

3. Country Harvest Source One whole wheat bread: I tried this because it comes in one of those "stay fresh until the last slice" wrappers. And it does work, the bread stays really fresh for a long time. It comes in a shiny orange wrapper, and is available at Loblaw's but not at Dominion.

4. Kraft Fat Free Italian dressing: This is actually the best Italian dressing I've had so far, and it's fat free! Again, available at Loblaw's but not at Dominion.

It's 11 pm and the humidity still hasn't broken. So I open my windows and hope that the overnight weather forecast is accurate.

My tummy hurts.

Should I watch Princess Bride, which I own, and love, and have seen many times? Or should I rent Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which I have never seen, and contains some upsetting scenes (although I should be able to skip them) but is part of a franchise I love?

Comfort requires that I wear a skirt and bare legs in this heat.
Professionalism requires that I wear a blouse to the office.
Etiquette requires that I wear closed-toed shoes at this time of year.

This morning, getting dressed, tired, grumpy, smelling the smog alert coming on, I said screw it all! My only closed-toed shoes that don't need socks have rather high heels, and I simply did not feel like walking the high heels walk all day, pretending I was unaware of the film noir look of my high heels and knee-length skirt and tailored blouse, pretending I was perfectly comfortable. So I opted for a bigass long wrap skirt. With flat sandals - open toes despite my leftover winter pedicure (which happens to be sparkly red). And a top that is essentially a t-shirt with a white collar sewn onto it. Comfortable, perfect for such a grumpy day, more flower child than young professional.

I call this fashion exhaustion - just waking up one morning unable to tolerate whatever one should be wearing that day, and putting one what one wants to wear. What's funny is almost everyone in my office did that today. We don't have a dress code, but everyone has their own sort of personal standards that they maintain. Today everyone let it slip a bit. I wore open-toed shoes with the corresponding dressing down of my outfit. People who had been walking around in new spring shoes and bandaids finally succumbed to running shoes. Those who had struggled to find the balance between the heat outside and the too-cold inside gave up on clever layering and just wrapped themselves in large blanket-like shawls. The pregnant succumbed to large shapeless dresses. Wearers of ties and pantihose freed themselves from those self-imposed shackles for the day. Dress shirts were replaced by plaid shirts, dress pants by khakis, and khakis by cargo shorts. Younger women wore outfits more appropriate for their mothers, and older women wore outfits more appropriate to their daughters. In an astounding act of synchronicity, three dozen people let their self-imposed standards slip down one notch, just for the day.

Why? We don't know. Because it was the fourth hot day in a row? Because the air conditioning in older apartments won't be turned on for another two weeks? Because work is slowing down and all we have is dull work? Who knows. But today was Fashion Exhaustion Day.

Attention weather: please do NOT get so fucking hot and humid before June 1, when they turn on the air conditioning in my building!

All over the media today is the fact that 1/3 of girls in grades 6-8 are dieting or concerned about their weight. Of course, the news media attribute* this to unrealistic body images portrayed in magazines and movies and celebrities etc. etc. However, it occurs to me that it might also be due in part to the saturation of media stories about how EVERYONE IN THE WORLD IS GETTING FATTER and it's a HEALTH EPIDEMIC and OBESITY IS THE NEW CANCER and whatnot. I could see some girls that age noticing a few extra pounds around their middle and figuring they'd better diet not so they can look like [insert whatever celebrity girls that age look up to], but so they can avoid being one of those obesity epidemic people.

Then we have articles like this one, which notes (based on questionable information) that 11 year old girls now have a larger waistline on average than grown women did in the 1940s, and spins it to mean OMG OUR KIDS ARE GETTING FAT!!!!!!

There are a few problems with that article, and with the conclusion they draw from it. The first problem is that height isn't taken into account. People now are taller than they were 60 years ago, particularly considering that the time period in question is war-torn Europe when rationing was in effect. They allege that the average woman in 1940s England was 33-21-33, but she was probably about 5'2" tall. (A cautious estimate based on the fact that, according to the all about puberty book I had as a kid, the average woman in 1990s England was 5'4"). Myself, I'm 5'7". A tad above average, but certainly nothing to write home about. Even if I were in perfect physical condition, even if I had the absolute minimum body fat required to function, I doubt I would be capable of being 33-21-33. For example, I have no fat on my ribs under my breasts, just skin and bones, and the circumference of my bra band is 31". If you add to that the minimum pecs needed to function normally, and the minimum mammary glands needed to be a fertile woman (even if I had no breasts to speak of), my chest would certainly be more than 33". So for a 21st century woman to be a few inches larger than 33-21-33 certainly does not mean that she's fat.

The second point that they seem to be neglecting in this article is that a significant number of 11-year-old girls have gone through their growth spurts, and almost all 13-year-old girls have, so they would be closer to the size of a grown woman than the size of a child. Using myself as an example again, I was 5'0" at the age of 10, and had reached my current height of 5'7" by the time I started high school at the age of 13. Again this is a bit taller than usual and a bit more of an early bloomer than usual, but when I was 11 years old I was probably about the same size as the average 1940s woman. The article spins it to give the impression that there are these oversized monster children stomping around, twice the size of their grandmothers. What it actually comes down to is that a group of people that includes a significant number of (physically) grown females now is slightly bigger than one ideal of a female figure 60 years ago. That is not a problem!

The third problem, which they don't even mention, is that women wore girdles in the 1940s, and the dress pattern from which they derive the 33-21-33 measurements would have taken this into account. Plug in whatever numbers you want, the 7:11 waist:hip ratio rarely if ever exists in nature. That would be 38.5-24.5-38.5 or 44-28-44. Also, when sewing a dress from a pattern, a seamstress with a moderate amount of skill can adjust it to accommodate different sizes or variations of shape such as wide hips and small chest. I'm sure it would be possible to make a dozen dresses from a single pattern all in different sizes, none of which are tailored to a 33-21-33 woman. Using a dress pattern to represent the actual sizes of actual women is simply bad science!

Perhaps the research in this article is moderately interesting, but it is more indicative of the fact that people are taller, puberty is earlier, and fashions are different than of an obesity crisis. It was irresponsible for them to have spun it that way. And they wonder why young girls are dieting!

(Edited to add: The article also mentions that skirt waist sizes have gone up. Male readers should be aware that skirt waist sizes don't always represent a woman's actual waist size, as they often have to be bought larger to accomodate the hips, or the normal expansion of the stomach through eating, sitting, and berathing. As a diaphragm-breather who spends the whole day sitting, I habitually by clothing with a number at least seven inches more than my actual waist circumference.)

Based on the few Americans I've spoken with, it seems that it has not yet been widely disseminated south of the border that the US military contracts out interrogation activities. (An American media outlet would probably have been more appropriate, but on a sensitive topic like this I didn't want to link to an outlet whose editorial stance I'm unfamiliar with. CTV is affiliated with Globe and Mail, which is centre-right in Canada. You can Google to see what your media outlet of choice does or doesn't say.)

I'm posting this not to comment on it - I do have opinions, but nothing that isn't obvious and hasn't already be said, and it isn't my place to comment on what activities another country's government chooses to outsource - I'm posting this just so any Americans who stumble upon my blog will be aware of it.

Salon asked its readers when and why they stopped watching Friends. My reply:

When Friends started airing, I was 13 years old and just starting high school. When I watched an episode of Friends, I would thing, "I want a life like that when I grow up." I don't remember when exactly I stopped watching the show, but I know that it was because I got to the point where I would watch an episode of friends and think, "When are they going to get a life and grow up?"

The final episode reminded me of why I loved the show and why I hated the show. There were those annoying moments of awkwardness and stupidity that make me mute the TV (Chandler trying to make small talk with Erica) and moments that made me laugh out loud (Joey trying to find the duckling and the chick, the presentation of the twins). I will admit to crying when Rachel got off the plane, even though Ross is surprisingly stupid for a scientist. At satisfying ending all around.

I just realized why I thought newborn babies don't move or do anything - because on TV they often have the actors just holding a bundle of blankets, with the occasional close-up of a real baby.

I'm sure you've all seen the recent study showing that divorce is most likelyto occur within the fouth year of marriage, so the fifth anniversary is golden. That is an extremely interesting statistic, but here are some more statistics they need to work out to help us get the complete picture:

- Divorce rate based on number of years of co-habitation (ie. can the same effect be achieved by cohabiting for five years?)
- Divorce rate based on number of years of dating, years of dating before co-habitation, years of dating and co-habitation before marriage
- Break-up rate of co-habitation relationships
- Divorce rate based on age, education, income, etc. at time of marriage
- Divorce rate based on difference in age, education, income etc. at time of marriage and throughout marriage.
- Divorce rate based on number and ages of children and how many years of marriage they waited before having children
- Divorce rate based on square footage per person in the home
- In what percentage of divorces was the main contributing factor to the divorce a problem that was identified by the couple as a potential problem before they entered into marriage? (ie. given that hindsight is 20/20, should they have seen it coming?)

What frightens me the most about the recent pictures of Iraqi prisoners being maltreated by American soldiers is the fact that it occurred to the soldiers to have the prisoners do those things. I highly doubt that soldiers are explicitly taught anywhere "Okay, when you have some POWs, make them take off all their clothes and do pyramids with bags over their heads." The culture and mentality that would lead them to think of something like that would be enough to make me avoid all military people at all forever if I weren't doing so already for completely different reasons.

Americans should also be frightened that there are people responsible for their national security who are stupid enough to take pictures of themselves doing these things.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood is the next Brave New World. Atwood does a damn fine dystopia! The moment I finished the book my first instinct was to read it again (unfortunately I couldn't, since I have six more books in my library pile). What's particularly interesting is the narrator is male, and as I was reading I kept getting the impression that the author was male. Perhaps this means that Atwood does an effective male narrator, but I'm not really qualified to decide that. At any rate, she must be a very talented author to be able to produce both a convincing male narrator and a work like Cat's Eye. (Essay topic: both Oryx and Crake and Cat's Eye are dystopias).

The only negative is that the book contains passing references to, and descriptions of, child pornography. It's done in a sufficiently vague, detached, technical way, but it does make the book less palatable (although I do realize dystopias aren't exactly supposed to be palatable), and it isn't strictly necessary to the story. It establishes character, but I don't think that aspect of the characters is necessary for the plot to work. Nonetheless, it isn't enough to make me say the novel is not worth reading. If you do read it, read it vertically with the cover facing outwards, so people will see Booker Prize-nominated Canlit rather than reading over your shoulder and stumbling upon mentions of child pornography.

Just in case anyone is looking back to their OAC year and laughing about how stressed they were over university applications:

OUAC says:

[U of T] does not contact applicants individually with respect to the required documentation. It is the applicant's responsibility to ensure that the documentation requested in the application package instructions is received by the University by the deadline stipulated.

The U of T application says:

Once we receive your completed application from [OUAC], we will send you information about the required documentation and document deadlines.

Of course I don't care, I've been through this process twice before and I know that OUAC doesn't really matter, but imagine the stress upon encountering this sort of mess for the first time.

It should be interesting (provided I get into the course I want) to see university from a completely stress-free perspective amid a classroom full of stressed-out froshies.

I find myself wondering what percentage of all products are available to me. For example, there are maybe three brands of milk at Dominion, and another brand at my neighbourhood Hasty Market. Seems like a decent selection of milk. But what if there are really, say, 27 brands of milk available in Ontario? And why can I only get 5% coffee cream at Hasty Market, not at Dominion or Loblaw's?

Attention yoga lady: okay, so you want me to contort my legs into the appropriate position, wrap my left arm around the outside of my left leg, put my right arm through the space between my legs, clasp my hands together on the other side and interlace my fingers.

Therefore, "interlace your fingers" should NOT be the FIRST instruction you give!

I dare anyone, anyone at all, to write a PhD dissertation that does not contain a colon (:) anywhere in the title.

(Yes, I have insomnia.)

It's a rainy Sunday. I'm not going anywhere more important than Dominion or Home Hardware. I'm at home, in my bathrobe, zit cream and moisturizer soaking into my face, no where near ready for public presentability. I decide that my hair needs to be pulled back out of the way. I give it a cursory once-through with my brush, distractedly pull it back from my face, twist it a couple of times more out of habit than anything else, and clamp the first clip I find over it.

The result: the smoothest, most graceful, most subtle, most casually elegant French twist ponytail I've ever produced.

Why does it never turn out this well when people are actually going to see it?

For some reason I can't write the letter O today. When I'm writing by hand (archaic, I know) and I go to do a lowercase cursive O, it ends up closing in on itself and looking like a diagonal line. And I have no idea why.