Month: February 2008

Every morning when I wake up early, in that fuzzy region between consciousness and actual wakefulness, I like to spend a moment or two of my time imagining what life would be like if I could return to slumber rather than set out to do whatever it is I have to do at such an unholy hour. I also like to ponder what the consequences might be if I were to skip whatever it is I need to do and opt to sleep-in instead. And on those rare, special occasions, I come to the fantastic epiphany that the world will not end if I stay in bed a couple extra minutes. I’m not going to discover the cure for cancer or end world famine today. Heck, let’s be honest, I probably won’t even recycle. Might the world would be better off without me for the next couple of hours?

It’s at this point that I shake myself, scoff (audibly), and think, “How absurd a notion! The world is never better off without me.”

We at Misusing Big Words always support and encourage reader participation. Due to some interest via online social networking sites (i.e. Facebook) regarding a previously posted post, James, Mark and Cherie thought to share an article discussion… Our first comes from Subscriber Nick Clark.

Nick writes:

I just read your “Farts” story. I disagree. I think many of those gases except perhaps the sulfides would diffuse through the alveolar membrane of the lungs into the blood of the pulmonary capillaries. The reason I think this is because they are all fairly small and/or non polar molecules and there is a relatively low concentration of many of those molecules in the blood, so the gases would diffuse through by means of passive transport through the alveolar membrane of the lungs. Are you or anyone interested in trying and testing out our respective theories? I think it would be a very interesting experiment.

Or did I just miss the meaning of this whole website, to not take this so seriously? Shit I always do that!

A response:

Dear Mr. Clark,

Thank you for subscribing to “Misusing Big Words” and for your outputting of sorts! I appreciate it tremendously.

You may be right. I have not conducted much research on the topic, and the theory presented is a personal hypothesis.

The reason your flatus has such a unique essence, however, is because of the presence of sulfides. The other gases (in which you say will diffuse through the membrane of our lungs) are essentially odorless. Thus, highlighting upon my concluding paragraph about concentrating your stank.

I present the following equation:

Presence of Sulfides + O2 + CO2 + N2 + CH4 + H2 —> Presence of Sulfides

Where “—>” is lung absorption of O2, CO2, N2, CH4, H2.

As you can imagine the volume of the gas has shrunk, leaving only the olfactory components of the flatus present.

I like to call this phenomena “The Cherie”.

Sincerely,
Cherie.

An afterthought and very misused P.S.:

After further consideration, I believe you are right about the additional investigation of this topic. I haven’t the time being in graduate school, but perhaps a couple of research partners and yourself may want to consider testing this hypothesis.

I am not sure about the exchange of gases part. I forgot to take into consideration the exchange of O2 for CO2. I’m not sure if the same volume of gases absorbed by our lungs is exchanged for an equal amount of CO2… The equation should then look something like this:

Presence of Sulfides + O2 + CO2 + N2 + CH4 + H2 —> Presence of Sulfides + (unknown coefficient) CO2

Therefore, the amount of sulfides present in our flatus may not necessarily be as concentrated as I previously thought.

If that is the case, we may just be filtering out the flammable components of our flatus, making the world a little safer; not to mention more ozone layer-friendly.

You may even want to further this study to that of the flatus of cows and the efficiency of human lungs to eliminate its component harmful ozone-deteriorating gases.

Should there be any other discussion regarding our forum (which we highly encourage and support) it will be posted here at Misusing Big Words with your approval.

Thank you to Mr. Clark for his contribution to our site and we look forward to hearing from all of you!

I am currently reading “Love is a Mix Tape” by Rob Sheffield. It’s a memoir about Rob’s relationship with his wife from the time they met until her relatively abrupt and untimely death (you find this out in the first two pages, so hold the anger on the spoiler alert). Rob is music critic for various publications, and having shared a common bond of music with his wife, strings the story together with the memories and situations behind a series of mix tapes Rob and his wife made for each other throughout their relationship.

It’s some real touching shit.

Mix tapes are incredible. Though, if someone were to give me one now, I probably wouldn’t play it. Not because I didn’t want to, but its the 21st century and cassette decks are somewhat hard to come by. In all practicality, they would more than likely be giving a mix CD, maybe even an iTunes playlist (though, the later lacks substantiation since it isn’t exactly tangible, and you cannot design mean cover art for the mix).

Purists would argue that a mix CD doesn’t compare to a mix tape. On a CD, you can jump around, skip the songs that don’t ring true for you, whereas on a tape, for better or for worse, you have to follow the story of songs as it was laid out for you. That might be true, but I don’t think that is enough to discount the value of a mix CD. The thought and emotion (and the RIAA-lawsuit risk undergone in obtaining the songs) is still represented and still comes through, no matter the medium it is delivered on.

I still remember the Love Jams, Volume 4 CD I made junior year of high school. It was preceded by volumes one, two and three, and followed by volumes 5 through 7. Number four was the pinnacle, the perfect mix of better known Bryan Adams and Boys II Men songs, mixed with the gems that lacked notoriety, but carried in their lyrics and music, the feelings I, at the time, thought I was feeling. Nothing ran truer than All 4 One’s “I Swear” directly followed by Boyz II Men’s “I’ll Make Love to You”, read together “I Swear I’ll Make Love to You”. That is a pretty solid message…

I wouldn’t say I am great at it, but push comes to shove, I make a pretty good mix.

I admit that I dig mix tapes.

But, I know a lot of haters, especially nowadays, and I think I can understand their argument. A mix tape is a pretty cornball thing to make and give someone, especially in the courting stages of the relationship. It is sort of like say, “I want to tell you how I feel, but I am too chicken, so please let Richard Marx tell you how he feels instead, and hopefully you will figure out, that, like Richard, I, too, feel that way about you.” It’s a total copout, and should not be used….until, at least, date four or five.

Once you are in a relationship, though, I don’t think it is any worse than giving your significant other a pet name (Honey Bunch, Sugar Britches, Blubber Buns (a favorite)), or writing her a love letter or a poem, or shaving her name into your back hair, or whatever. People in relationships do a lot of cheesy stuff, and to outsiders that is exactly what it looks like, cheesy, corny-ass stuff. But, to the people in the relationship, oh, they love it. It’s a good thing it’s cheese and they are not lactose intolerant because they just eat it up. It’s sentimental and it makes them feel special, despite its recognizable corniness.

I would like to see mix tapes/CDs/playlists back in the limelight. Really, they work in any situation. Make one for Granny and call it the ‘Bust a Hip Mix’, or a party mix, a road trip mix, a break-up mix, a taken-a-dump mix (nothing inspires movement, bowel movement that is, then “My Humps”, which on a take-a-dump mix brings new meaning to junk in the trunk)… They are versatile, and they deserve more credit, even if they are enormously corny.

If for no other reason, you have the opportunity to do this:

I awake with an odd feeling in my belly. It is almost like the feeling one receives after having been falling for more than a few seconds; that sense, after the initial reaction of feeling like all of one’s internal organs became gridlocked on their through the neck into the brain, that one experiences several moments into a free fall in which it no longer feels unpleasant, but sort of euphoric. It is similar to that momentary enjoyment that occurs immediately after a sneeze.

The dream that sent me crashing back to consciousness was bizarre, to be sure, but more in a “what does it mean?” sense than a “I’m afraid I’ve gone insane” way. I had been trapped in some sort of environment without any gravity, though I had no suit of any kind and I was able to breathe freely. I floated around for a few moments before I noticed that one of my back teeth was loose. This struck me as odd, because I was a grown adult and had already lost all of my baby teeth, but I tried to pull it out anyway. The more I pulled, though, the more I just did somersaults in mid air. Because there was no gravity, I could never get any leverage, so I simply pulled myself in circles over and over.

Then, at some point, I simply woke up. Nothing woke me up, there was no loud noise or anything of the sort, I just snapped out of it, which is something that rarely happens to me while I am dreaming unless it is a bad dream. This wasn’t a bad dream, though, just strange.