burning

My house is full of smoke, my eyes burn. Dinner was a bit of a disaster this evening. I looked into the kitchen and smoke was pouring out of the oven. It was actually just the fish 'cooking' but it has infiltrated the entire house and my eyes still burn, in my room, upstairs, which had the door closed. Fire seems to be a recent theme in my life. I had to watch a fire safety video at school because I have an illegal sun lamp in my room (the sacrifices I make for my plants... haha) and ever since then I've been noticing lots of fire safety issues. This morning I got mad at a comic in the newspaper because the mother took the time to put shoes on her daughters before getting them out of the house when the alarm went off. Right now in my house all the batteries are out of the smoke detectors because we're in the midst of changing over. Granted I appreciated that this evening, fanning the smoke away from the detector when we burn dinner isn't exactly my favorite job.

I'm reading a really interesting book called Anthropologist on Mars. It had me worried I'd lost my sanity for a brief period of time, I noticed it glows in the dark the other night, but then the next day I couldn't convince anyone that it actually does. Turns out it just glows rather faintly so its nearly impossible to see during daylight, but I swear, it really does glow! There are other interesting aspects of this book aside from its cover as well. It is written by a neurologist and describes seven cases he has studied. The descriptions are the perfect balance of academic and narrative- keeps my brain working but not too hard. He studied an artist who lost all sense of color and a surgeon who has tourettes, but never exhibits tics while operating. Makes you reconsider how you view the world.

An interesting question: if you had to lose one of your five senses which would you lose first? second? ... fifth? I've gotten some really surprising answers giving great insight into people's priorities.