Daily Archive

The first professor I see each week makes me think of Hank Azaria. Same mournful yet lit-up hound-dog eyes, similar self-deprecating delivery, identical way of diverting attention from himself almost immediately upon attracting it.

Though based wholly upon the impression I formed of Hank Azaria’s persona while watching his handful of appearances on Friends (as Phoebe’s scientist boyfriend who went to Russia), the strength of the association in my mind between these two entirely-unrelated men is powerful and thus far indelible.

Today gracefully-aging Hank Azaria posed yet another of his questions for thought. What if eyes worked like ears? he asked, and then proceeded to elucidate the distinctions and why we can be glad they exist. Mostly because their existence keeps us from seeing the world the way I do with my glasses off (even worse, if that’s possible) – as one big blur. Tympanic membranes already made me think of unseeing glowy eyes, and now even more so.

The “Making the Best of Bits” chapter of You Are Not A Gadget came along last night – I must be doing something right with my haphazard extracurricular reading because it fits right in with those curricular wavelengths.

Smell and speech could be as mechanically patterned on each other as hearing and sight are, with similarly thrilling ramifications. Not even close to a breakthrough, but these connections, however qualified and oversimplified for my level of understanding, remind me why I’m doing this. There’s so much I want to know.

Where taste fits in to this sense schema I don’t really have time to wonder. I’m sure that it does somehow, but gustation is pretty low on my list for the first time in my life. I barely have time to eat, let alone think about what I’m going to eat in advance.

By the time it becomes imperative to get some glucose to my brain it’s running so low I can’t think of what I might need or want to eat so I grab something that’s more often than not completely unsatisfying and/or nutritionally vacant. Gone are the days of mindful eating of carefully-anticipated lovingly-crafted food, for the most part. I’m not at the my way right away/lovin’ it stage yet, but it looms.

That recurring predicament, rough new territory for me, plus these zombie mosquito bites that rose up with a fearsome itchiness after a week of going the fading-scars route keep my days from being misery-free – still I’m doing all right.