Things I Have Learned About the Human Body in the Past Seven Months

1. The chest has joints - located in the sternum, connecting it to the clavicle, and connecting the sternum's manubrium, body, and xyphoid process. these joints can be strained, through trauma or strenuous physical activity, such as coughing or, say, intense vomiting resulting from too much damn vodka.

2. The spleen filters the blood and while useful in combatting infections, it is not essential in adults.

3. Trauma to teeth - impact, the force of braces - can result in the death of the tooth, even 20 years later. Or, more specifically, 13-16 years later when a front incisor suddenly turns grayish at the top. the solution? a root canal.

siiiiiggggghhh. my company's dental insurance update couldn't have come at a better time.

Overheard in Bodies ... The Exhibition

I Like Polymer Butts And I Can Not Lie

Teenage Girl [to her mother]: Stop staring at his saggy butt!

reported by OI ______________________________________________________________________________________

Man [to himself]: They always got to put that butt on, don't they?

reported by OI ______________________________________________________________________________________

... Or You'll Go Blind.

Teenage Girl [to another teenage girl]: Ew, don't touch it!

reported by OI ______________________________________________________________________________________

It's What's for Dinner

Woman [staring at pectoral muscles]: Jesus. It looks like beef.

Vegan Woman: It's all the same thing.

reported by OI ______________________________________________________________________________________

No, your Honor - there were never any signs

Little boy [rushing to specimen]: I really really really really want to see this one.

reported by OI ______________________________________________________________________________________

Everything has to be a competition

Woman: This one's better hung than that one.

reported by LB ______________________________________________________________________________________

....among other disturbing, disrespectful things overheard.

Bodies ... The Exhibition at the South Street Seaport was a fascinating and sobering experience.

The Fascinating: 10 rooms - 3 far less air-conditioned than others - dedicated to the evolutionary symphony that is the human body. Adults, giggling teens, wide-eyed children - none weepy, all curious and asking questions their parents couldn't answer - crowded around the exhibits in wonder.

The Sobering: thoughts of "Who," "How," "When," "Where," and "Why". Particularly of "Who." Questions, I suppose, that plague any medical student.

The Fascinating: Especially interesting were the exhibits of the circulatory system - red and blue networks of veins, capillaries and nerves suspended in glass cases filled with plasma, corresponding to the shape of the body part from which they came. incredible. incredible, too, was the sight all of the people reaching out to touch the dissected bodies on display. there was even a booth at the end of the exhibit where people were allowed to handle preserved organs and body parts. Apparently, I am in the minority when it comes to feeling disgusted that anybody would want to touch these things. By the time we left the exhibit, my muscles were humming - though nearly two years separate me from the experience by now, i was a little affected by the various displays of vertebrae - attached still to bodies with red muscles flayed apart, resting silent in a glass case, cross sectioned so the spinal cord was visible, reminding me keenly of the delicate balance that so easily could have been tipped.

We left the building and stepped into the warm Sunday sunshine. I slung my trench over my arm - we discussed lunch. Throngs scurried around us - the smell of fish still lingering faintly across the street - and I suggested sitting by the lapping gray water for a bit. Muscles, capillaries, nerves, and veins still humming, I sat.

The Sobering/Appalling/Depressing/Guilt-causing: fascinating educational experience for onlookers or no ... what a way to end up.

you, you, you

One day - must have been at least a month ago - while cruising myspace as i was supposed to be doing something important, I noticed that somebody had managed to paste a new kind of internet video - large, slightly grainy - on someone's comment space. "you tube", read the play button. then, I noticed these same kinds of videos cropping up on the profiles of nearly everybody I knew, including my friend Jiggy's website, tgontv. Soon enough, somebody posted one on mine. i was at first under the impression that these videos were merely of TV clips, but now, after checking out clips of movies like Teen Witch and David Hasselhoff music vids, I see that they've got pretty much everything. A leisurely search using my office's cable internet yielded such gems as all things O-Zone, Dragostea din tei video parodies, Duran Duran spots, and 80s cartoons. Musing, I thought I'd try my luck to see just how extensive this YouTube really was. Ladies and gentlemen, the answer: lo and behold, my prince of 70s italian pop himself: Lucio Battisti!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqeuE6hW6UM

singing one of my favorite songs. my excitement is non-paralleled. waste not your chance to see and hear it all for yourself instead of just listening to me going on and on about it. there's no rino gaetano on youtube (...yet), but there is my lucio: his voice! his fro! his ascot! acqua azzura, acqua chiara! god, i love the internet.

someone's shoving at the door

2 a.m., home from work, strolling through the lobby, noting that the heel on my right shoe was worn down to the nail (again) as it scraped against the floor with each step, collecting the mail - crap, more crap, the phone bill, and the loveliest Thank You note from mein Buttercry on cream colored stationery - up the elevator and down the flourescent bright hall to my door. preparing for the usual fight with the unusually difficult lock, i inserted my key and commenced the customary series of jiggles required to open the damn thing. the lock has been harder to open as of late, causing me and my guests to tap our toes impatiently as i wrestle with it, so i wasn't surprised when, tonight, it took an exceptionally long time for the welcoming "click" to sound. In general, once that "click" sounds, I am able to open the door and so enter to shush Heifer, who will be nosing her way into the hallway, yowling. tonight, however, the door only opened an inch and stuck in its track with a thud. I groaned, seriously not in the freaking mood for this sort of thing now, past 2 in the morning, when all I wanted to do was wash my face, get into bed and curl up with some more of Dorothy Parker: Complete Stories to wind down from my night at the office. I jostled the door. It still didn't budge.

"Crap!" I said eloquently and continued to shove, thinking it was, perhaps, merely stuck with age. Nothing. I rocked back on my heels in despair and imagined the super downstairs having to break the whole thing down, waking my neighbors and leaving me with a dangerously drafty entrance to my apartment and a whole lot of splainin to do. I shoved again - this time, the door swung open from the inside. I gasped in shock (what the -!), only to find a bleary eyed, nightgowned Auntie Jean in the foyer with a hand on the knob. like a total scatterbrained spaz, I had completely forgotten they were coming to town today.

She was very sweet about it; laughed, told me to stop my racing heart, and gave me a hug before plodding back off to bed. For my part, I was relieved to be inside, happy to see her, still experiencing palpitations from the shock of having that stuck door open by itself, and, lastly, much shamed; not only did I wake her and the uncle up at a terrible hour, but in my utter forgetfulness, I had done nothing to prepare for their arrival. there were dishes and heaps of forks still in the sink; the ironing board was stretched out in the living room; there were piles of tourist brochures for Guatemala on the dining table. the litter hadn't been changed, either, nor had the air fresheners. Honestly, the apartment is decent enough - presentable, if a little cluttered in spots - but so much more could have been done. Shame! I quietly opened the refrigerator to deposit the remaining half of my Quizno's sub; the formerly skeletal icebox was now heaped with juice, yogurt, bread, and all sorts of good things. shame, too, that they find the refrigerator practically bare (today, they were met by eggs and Trader Joe's soy milk). Can't a person my age get their business together?

Tomorrow, I'll straighten up, bake some cupcakes and Febreze this place. That is, if i can wake up.

sigh.

Skin So Soft

In preparation for Lindsey's rapidly approaching trip to New York (holla), I cruised the Bodies ... The Exhibition Web site for ticket information. Finding nothing helpful, I glanced at the FAQs and found:

What do the preserved polymer bodies feel like?

This, among expected questions like "Who organized and designed Bodies ... The Exhibition" and "How long do the bodies last after polymer preservation?". This! This is a frequently asked question? For serious? What do they feel like? I can't believe one person got up the nerve to ask this, let alone a whole bunch. Nor can I believe this question was even entertained by the group. And yet, it was:

The specimens, claims the Web site, feel dry to the touch and can be either rigid or flexible depending on the mix of chemicals used [ugh!]. While guests will be able to get very close to the specimens, as a rule, guests are not allowed to touch them.

...but if you really must touch a stripped, dissected body - if the prospect consumes your thoughts, your sleep, your dreams - we do sell Bodies ... The Exhibition brand dried apricots and Bodies ... The Exhibition brand beef jerky in the gift store for $10.99 per pack.

What do the preserved polymer bodies taste like?

For crying out loud, you sick, sick, sickos.

....

... flower buds are everywhere, dotting the branches in whites and pinks and reds. Friday: 60ish degrees. Saturday: 30ish. Sunday: 40ish. This week: rumored to be beautiful.

Far too much nail nibbling going on lately. Makes me wonder if I'm regressing to 1990 or preparing for something, like a heifercat getting antsy before a hurricane.

From the Glamour Accounts Payable hotline:

The check will be mailed out to you tomorrow morning.

Thanks,
Michelle

We like it.

Last night, out of work at a decent hour - 1 a.m. - and as it was an "off Sunday" - no theater review due the next day - I walked downtown from the office part of the way with Evan and Georgis, parting company with them at 14th and Park, the best-smelling corner of Manhattan, as an Au Bon Pain is situated there and, for some reason, only past midnight, that corner smells like all the good cinnamony-burnt-bakey-frostingy-buttery-sweet things in the world combined in one soothing, powerful whiff. further down in my walk home, I stopped at Cozy - the appallingly overpriced diner a couple of blocks from my apartment - for my usual egg sandwich on a buttered toasted bagel; perhaps the only thing there that is somewhat reasonably priced (something like $3). Add a couple of crunchy pickle spears and it's happiness on a plate. It's even nice when the pickle spears are a sickly neon green and somewhat mushy. A chocolate egg cream, the thick volume in your purse - Dorothy Parker: Complete Stories - and (lost in a world of barbed women, dull, shadowy men and fluttering maids) it's a respectable end to a night of work. Or morning.