listen, blog,

Hi blog, it's me. Yeah, it's been a while. Not a whole week, like a school week maybe. Okay, but that's not that bad. You know how one day can turn into two days that can turn into a week....
Hey, blog, I didn't forget about you. I visited you every day, I meant to write in you, I just couldn't find the time, things have been crazy lately. I know. No- well yes- I have another blog, but that's a school blog. You're my blog, my own personal blog, my real blog. I know. yes. I swear. never again.
It has been a while. I really haven't been that busy either. Just sick and trying like mad to get better before I go home for Gen's wedding. It'll be fun to see Steve and Lil and Gilbert after so long and to meet the Dazets. And see my Tina! Dad's cool too. I guess I'm looking forward to the whole thing. I gotta practice singing that song so it sounds wicked good at Genny's wedding (people at Oberlin say 'wicked' a lot. And 'hella' which sounds kind of dumb to me). Should get with Liam, my pianist, this week (Liam is also my nickname for my penis, which is funny 'cause it rhymes!).
I was sobered reading my Cancer Biology textbook today. As you can imagine, it's not a particularly cheery kind of reading, but today's chapter (seven, in case you're following along at home) was especially dreary. In the early days of X-Ray research, apparently, Thomas Edison had a techician whom he used to take X-Ray pictures of hands. He used the same technician, since he had no idea the radiation could be harmful. The poor lab assistant got radiation burns on his hands after a while, and cancer in them not too long after. Despite having his arms amputated, he died of metastatic cancer not too long after. Armless for Pete's sake. Who the hell is Pete, who gets put on the same level as God? 'For God's sake' is the same as 'For Pete's sake,' but I would be much more willing to do something for God than some guy named Pete, for the love of God/Pete.
Madam Curie died in a similar fashion, of leukemia after years of working with radioactive chemicals, as did her scientist daughter. Ouch. Similar radioactive materials are also found in cigarettes. Radon is in fertilizers they use to grow tobacco, and both radon and polonium are found in cigarette smoke (and in high concentrations in smokers' lungs). Smoking a pack a day for a year will subject you to 3000 times more cancer causing radiation than living next door to a nuclear power plant for a year, about 500 times more than getting a chest x-ray. Now I know that, even if this was well publicized and explained in a few Truth commercials, it wouldn't do a thing as far as getting people to quit smoking, but the fact that the government knows about all of this and has for decades now is a bit vexing for me. As soon as asbestos was linked to lung and chest cavity cancer, the US and affluent countries around the world banned it and actively excised all traces of it from their homes and public buildings. Asbestos isn't mined anymore, and asbestos products aren't produced. It only exists in third world countries where they need schools and hospitals and can't afford to tear down the walls and build new ones. Tobacco companies add things (fertilizer to grow tobacco, chemicals for taste and addictivity) to tobacco, and many of these cause emphysema and lung cancer, but really the only thing the government has done is put a warning label and a higher price on cigarettes. I think that kind of sucks. You can't even do anything with cigarettes, like build a house. You just burn them and suck on them. I wish they would just tell the people who make cigarettes to make them a little less harmful, but it's such a moneymaker that they won't even do that. I suppose I could try to do something about it, but then I would have to go into politics, which gives me the willies.