And if brains were pasta you'd feel hungry all the time

A long, long while ago I thought it'd be fun to write a series of posts on what makes us distinctly human. I may be in vet school now but am also an Anthropologist and find such things, indeed, fun. I asked readers to be my think tank and leave their thoughts in the comments section so we could build a list and start from there. This is what it looked like when we were finished:

1 - Orgasms, oral sex + missionary position + sex toys

2 - Abortion
- Homosexuality
- Language (not simply communicating)

- Insomnia (how could I've missed this one!)
- Art
- Self-recognition
- Humour/laughter
- Killing own species’ members for no apparent reason
- Culture
- Mourning the dead
- Burying the dead
- Active teaching
- Religion
- Racism
- Revenge
- Tools (makeshift and use)
- Vanity
- Greed
- Imagination
- Clothing
- Intuitive thinking
- Ritualisation
- Awareness of impending own death
- Sense of time (past, future, memories, expectations, learning and planning)

- The Means to Conceivably End All Life On This Planet [just because, there’s no out-arguing this one really]

The first two, sex and abortion, are numbered bcs I did wrote abt them, here and here. But then my insomnia became really bad, and then my world collapsed under liquid pressure, and those were the only ones I ever did write.

Now, remember the very first post was simply a collective brainstorming. It received a new comment:

"Killing own species’ members for no apparent reason " Im no expert but I'm sure that other animals kill their own kind. Your post has an anti-human tone to it, I'm not sure what thats about, but I have to argue
that not humans don't kill each other for "no apparent reason".You also included greed, but don't animals eat until their appetites are fully satisfied. I'm sure they don't eat to just sustain themselves. I also don't think that alpha-male animals will allow less dominate members of their group to have sex withtheir mate. I dont know where you got racism from, that just seems to come out of left field. Your giving something distinctly human, and applying to animals.All in all I think this article is poor and should be backed up with evidence, not just what you think makes us human.

And this took close to 17 min to be written as wel. A Canadian from the Ontario area, you might be happy to know. *sigh*

Theory 1

People who feel very inadequate in real life see blogging as a sort of therapeutic, egomegalotistic power trip where they are entitled to say what they please as they please without being constrained by details such as common courtesy or any social rules really bcs, after all, if we didn't want people to read it we souldn't have written it now should we and I'd be hard placed to find a more inane argument. I think, broadly translated, this means I am allowed to take an ax to the furniture when I go round to someone's house and find it displeasing. My quality of life has just been vastly improved.

Theory 2
Many people feel that it's perfectly all right to finish I don't know how many years of schooling and still not master their mother language. That commenter above doesn't strike me as dyslexic and so I am left feeling pissy. Which adds to the pissy I already felt regarding theory 1.

Theory 3
Anonymous commenters choose to be Anons, not even boothering to choose an alias, bcs not only are they sexually confused but they suffer nominally, in its literal sense of in name only. They look at the little comment box and when faced with the millenary question Who am I? what can they do but whimper. Anons are legion, groinless and encephaless, and out of respect to their predicament I shall refer to my commenter as an IT.

The truth is, I absolutely don't know what the bloody hell IT is talking abt. HELP!

1) Is IT really calling a post that is nothing more than a list an article?
2) Is IT saying that not humans (non-humans, I surmise) do not kill others just bcs? [Warn chimps and bottlenoses quickly!]
3) WHAT exactly is IT saying regarding greed? In one sentence, many worlds. I could cry.
4) Is IT saying Alpha males are omnipotent and ubiquitous? [Warn sea lions quickly! Or most Alphas that turn their back for far too long really.]
5) Is IT really saying I'm racist bcs - I compiled a list? I don't know, I still don't know what he's talking abt.

I am starting to smell a foreign speaker (I smell human flesh, as the Giant in the Bean story says in Portuguese) - well, I smell something malodorous in any case, which leads me to:

Theory 4
Very Stupid People are attracted to me bcs I am kind and gentle, and I handle imbecility so very well.

Anti-human? Absolutely, anon. Three-penised aliens do it that much better.

I don't even know what to call this so make up your own title

It's 4.30 am and I am not sleeping yet, again, maybe I shouldn't have re-read all of Cancerbaby archives but can't be helped now, and now am fed up with reading and watching TV and decided I'd maim meme myself. Feel free to join me.

Accent: I suppose a Portuguese one but not really the typical Portie one. You who have heard me IRL, what do I sound like? (Be polite now.)

Booze: Caipirinha, but really weak and really sweet and don't let my inevitable alcohol-induced lisp bother you.

Religion: Jewish

Chore I Hate: Honestly, all. Oh, except for shoe shining, which I love. Other than that, long live the housekeeper. I should have been born rich. Alternatively, I should have got an anal-retentive man.

Dogs/Cats: Yes, bless them. My dog, Papoila (= Poppy); 2 cats J.I.P (Jewish Israeli Princess) and Hum-Hum, The Tripod One.

Essential Electronics: My wireless laptop, Moshe The Malfunctioner, and the telly. Would not know how to (or want to for the matter) live without it.

Favorite Perfume/Cologne: Laura Ashley's Nr. One. Discontinued. DISCONTINUED. Help!

Gold/Silver: Silver, white gold, platinum, never ever gold.

Hometown: Lisbon, Portugal.

Insomnia: Are you asking if I indulge in it? *cackles* *CACKLES!!* Re-read the 1st paragraph or bathe in my Insomnia category.

Job Title: Dismayed vet student, dismayed freelance translator

Most Admired Trait: Languages are like birds, they come terribly easy.

Overnight Hospital Stays: Being a preemie ensured a few, and having ear/nose surgery two decades later for preemie-related repairs added another one, and then some stupid twat drove her car into mine and nicked my 3rd cervical vertebrae which required a CT scan and an overnight stay IN THE PSYCHIATRIC WARD bcs all beds elsewhere were full and being unable to move your head was a fucking joy in that environment, let me tell you, especially when the girl in the bed next to yours peripherally looks demented, which is a suprise in that ward, and you end up having a fight with that aide person who was adamant abt your having to relinquish your knickers bcs it stands to reason that if you were to, say, become paralysed from the neck down the way to your vertebrae would most certainly be through your cervix. That was one exceedingly long night and this was just the surface.

Phobia: This meme is absolutely priceless, oh the memories! FUNNY! All together now: tsunamis! Tsunamis have been my greatest phobia for as long as I can remember. I could write a poem.

Kids: *cackles, again* Ahh, so much mirth, so little time... I slightly miscarried my 1st pregnancy abt a month ago. The answer would obviously be a resounding No.

Quote: "In life pain is unavoidable, suffering is optional." No idea who said it first, wish it had been me.

Time I usually wake up: I love to wake up early but it depends. I need to sleep a lot [see Insomnia above for a hearty chuckle] but usually sleep rather badly and wake up a tonne of times per night [see Cervical Thingy above for another good one] and well, it's a misery really.

Unusual Talent: I can curse in six languages. This comes in handy more than one would expect it to.

Vegetable I refuse to eat: Dill. DILL. Dill is the work of the spawn of Satan's worms.

Number of sexual partners: Pre-marital sex is the work of the spawn of satan's worms' spawn.

Worst Habit: What the fuck could I possibly write here? Bloody hell but this is a difficult one. *ahem*

Yummy Foods I make: Oh shut up. [Oh wait, gizzards! I actually make fabulous gizzards and liver.]

------------
[Meme stolen from Stacey]

This isn't fair!

Through Grrl I found Cancerbaby and have been reading her for months, and checking for an update anxiously. She is dying, as we feared. She is dying and I don't know how to explain how this death is affecting me. Her words are so powerful, so raw, they bite through your soul and expand it. I never cry reading blogs and I am in tears now bcs of a woman whose real name I don't even know. A woman who actually made me cry when she wrote this. All I know is that she writes beautifully, extraordinarily and has thus changed my life, given it more meaning, all I know is I want her to live. She is absolutely magnificent and I cannot believe she will be no more. It really doesn't seem to be abt fairness does it. Fuck if I know what it's abt. I will remember her always, and always with gratitude and wonder.

-------------------------

Update: She's gone. Her name was Jessica, and she was 33.

[If you want to read her, which you should if you want to see yourself turned inside out and enriched in a way you didn't think possible, in a way that only words accomplish, that only some words accomplish, heartbreaking as it is, her archives only show until June. But while inside the June 2005 archives, at the top, you can see a link for May and so forth till February 2005, the beginning. This woman was a true gift.]

How Lil' Lioness went and got her arse shrunk

Lil' Lioness has had the Buttocks Blues.

She quit smoking ages ago, always a mistake as it turns out, and gained 4 kg (8.8 lb). Lil' Lioness being the focused sort, she’d apparently focused on gaining them on her rump. Not her face, where they might do some good. Her rump. Said 4 kg stayed put upon resuming smoking. Smoking isn’t merely stupid, it also lets you down.

Rumpy-not-so-little-anymore Lil' Lioness suddenly didn’t fit into her pants, oh the horror. No really, THE HORROR. She was hoping it was a phase, and well, it was. A phase borrowed from some universe where days last 72 h and phases stay put.

Lil' Lioness bravely hit the shops, and the adjective is sadly accurate. Bravery was what it warranted. Lil' Lioness cannot see the point of having yellow lighting in a country of sallow skin. [Oh all right, some are olivey but they too look icteric.] Lil' Lioness cannot see how carnival mirrors help sales, sobbing women are less inclined to spend money plus they need the bills to pay for the therapy that comes after retail therapy. Lil' Lioness and her friend actually physically recoiled from their reflections when they unexpectedly came upon a mirror. Her friend does not look like a cube in real life, nor does Lil' Lioness actually look like a wine vat. When you see women stumbling out of a shop, white-faced and anguished, please be kind, they went in to try and find pants. They are shell-shocked. They will be thinking But I look awful, why hasn’t anyone told me bfr that I look this awful? And now Summer is coming and I can no longer walk around wrapped in a blanket and tell people it’s the latest trend in the Appalachians!

No amount of male flattery will help these women, they’ll just snarl at the well-meaning souls as their pupils become elliptical. They know, see. They saw it. They’re broken.

Eventually, they’ll forget abt it enough that they’ll think it’s safe to venture in. Again. It is not that women cannot learn. They simply have a had time believing the universe really means to bugger them. Personally. Surely it can’t be that bad. So in they go and the lighting, the lighting, oh how it hurts! Courageously they stand bfr the pants wrack, elegantly wondering What the fuck is fashion coming to and who chooses these models bcs, see, they were sure the 80’s were over and the torn jeans look were sort of passé even then, how can one be requested to give 30 euros for something that looks like it was not only white-washed but personally chewed and spat out by the friendly foreign workers? And this is Portugal, my friends, not Belgium, not Scandinavia, Portieland, where the men are short and the women shorter, where they typically have short legs and fertility-inducing arses and, dare I say it, a touch if the belly, who could possibly have decided to send boot cut (good), low-waisted (nightmare, a nightmare, some of us dislike the thought dialysis!), tight (aaaargh!) models to the Land Of The Stumpy? [Lil' Lioness seems to have had an infusion of foreign genes for she is taller than most and doesn't look Portie but even she goes in and comes out stocky.]

Thus one cringes often when walking the streets, praying for Trinny and Susannah to fall from the sky. They are needed.

So.

Lil' Lioness.

Now recovered from her little What, a cub you say? For me? Surely you jest Ah Ah AHAHAHA. Now attending classes again. Now on the streets again and not in that way, though it’s not unfair to say the harlots seem to dress better than she does right now, nor that they’d surely have more clients. The bleakness of it all.

Yesterday Lil' Lioness dragged a friend to an impromptu pant hunt. She needed someone to physically carry her out when she passed out from shock and hit her forehead on the stupid mirror and bled all over it and by Golly it would serve them right. The landscape was fraught with the usual perils, the ones that left her blind [OHMYEYESMAKEITSTOP!] and the ones that left her wanting to curl up into a ball and weep in the changing room.

And then, and then!

And then she had a brainstorm. Man pants. In she went into a shop and look, lovely army-green cargo pants. And look, they fit! And in she went into another shop and look, lovely dark-blue cargo pants, and look, they fit as well!

And thus our Lil' Lioness learnt that Portie men are more femaley than their women bcs the pants were wonderfully cut in a feminine way, normally-waisted (actually, thin-waisted), needed no belt and they were magical as well - you step into them and half of your butt disappears. HALF. Lil' Lioness was beyond herself and actually couldn’t speak the first time she put them on and stepped out to show them to her suffering companion, she could only stand there wide-eyed and point at the previously vast region of her derrière. It was gone! GONE! In a parallel universe a woman was surely screaming upon waking up and finding she no longer fit into her pants and where had THAT come from overnight and she should never have stopped smoking.

Lil' Lioness is the cold-hearted sort and is simply happy that THAT went somewhere.

Lil' Lioness now has the ButtRocks Swing, sistahs!

Soooooooooo.....

That translation job, the one I've been slaving over since the beginning of March for up to 14 h a day? Through a series of incredible fuck ups not of my doing it fell through. Long, miserable story but all it's all bloody gone.

The (----):
That work, all that sacrifice has been for nothing, it will not be used at all. Nor will I get paid, can't be helped. Also, *hums Pink Panther bars* skin most displeased with it all and hands simply had to have a bit of a flare up. Their opinion on the whole thing, I presume.

*MOTHER OF ALL FURBALLS*

The (+++):
I will now have time to study, which dramatically increases the odds of, say, my not failing this year. Am falling in love with the liver and its enzymology as we speak, hepatic encephalitis? Sexy little thing! [Liver also very tasty when fried with onions and rosemary. A winner all around, YEY LIVER!] I, as of now, also have time to be with E. I seem to recall he has blue eyes, which means our children [HA!] are doomed [no pun intended] but can't be helped either. Finally, the probability of my throwing myself in the river ou of translating desperation has been greatly diminished.

[Oh, quick detour on insomnia for the blissfully unaware. My falling asleep early and then waking up at 4 am IS, in fact, still insomnia. It's simply the sort I rarely get but one I'm nevertheless familiar with. It is actually one of the first words I bother to learn when learning a new language. And my becoming comatose easily these days doesn't translate into god sleeping either bcs my dreams are mad and I wake up entirely too bloody often. Sleep disorder still very much alive. Fell asleep after 4 am last night, see how I never disappoint?]

While comp cleaning last nigth I came across this post I don't even remember, from those ill-fated Krav Maga days and I thought it would provide a much needed cheery note. That's my alter ego, cheery:

He showered in the morning.
And then he showered right bfr Krav Maga.
And then he showered right after it.
And then he said My skin feels so dry and funny.
And then he said You know, it's not very nice of you to laugh.
And then he said Oh stop that.
And then he sulked.

Lioness Cheery Boom-bay!

Happy 58!

Yom Ha'atzmaut, Independence Day in Israel. A day for barbecues outside, for family and laughter, for remembering, for missing those who can no longer sit in the sun with us.

I am no longer in Israel but there's a flag outside my window. At all times, it would seem. May you all ba'aretz have it wonderful. Some days away are harder than others.

Did I just hear Donald Trump say...

... My true apprenti??

Apprentus, apprenti - that's hysterical, what a brill sense of

(I ישה ישהק)

ככככככ !!!!!
חישעגד א5$#
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

----------------------

As you have NOT noticed then, I had a bit of a problem yesterday, i.e. my keyboard suddenly switching into Hebrew without any reason I could discern since I was inside the new post, writing it, and my not being able to change back into our alphabet at all so there was nothing left for me to do but publish and hope you'd all understand something was amiss, I thought it'd be obvious something was considering the very sudden lack of any sense whatsoever [say, What a brill sense of - and then the vortex], plus the Hebrew on everyone's screen but, apparently, I am thought to be the sort of mad as a hatter person who regularly breaks into foreign squiggle typing and loud exclamation points and very soon I'm bound to give in to the pressure and sTArT talKInG LIkE tHis, 2darling4words, and you'll have no one to blame but yourselves.

Bugger.

So yes, The Apprentice. I'm currently watching S5, don't know how many there are, and I'm addicted. Watching is a loosely-employed term considering I don't have time to do much other than watch it in bed and fall asleep in the middle of it. The translation job? LALALAICAN'THEARYOU. Can't be arsed to talk abt it now, am valiantly trying to make it all go away. GO AWAY.

Thank you.

Trump's hairstyle and colour + rosebud mouth cause me pain though. Physical pain.