I have a weird fondess for a good fever. The sweaty, shivering, achey, loopy state is at least interesting and definitely preferable to nausea or a plain old cold.  This one hit me out of the blue, just as my writing finals were all turned in and a couple of days before my big two-hour neuro exam.

A fever is an interesting beast in itself. The widely accepted explanation for them is simply that the body is increasing the internal temperature in order to kill of viruses or bacteria who have a more limited viable temperature range. Many animals have a wider range than those shitty, microscopic creatures that make us sneeze. Humans, for instance, can have a “normal” oral temperature anywhere from 92 to 100 degrees fahrenheit. Then again around 95 degrees is said to be the average starting point of hypothermia. Above a 100 degrees is right about when fevers set in and there’s no fear of brain-frying until about 107 degrees. Until it reaches about 104, you should just ride out the loopy fever wave. Which, I’ll readily admit, is kinda fun.

There’s also some emerging evidence that fevers increase the movement of white blood cells—the ninja warriors of the immune system—to the front lines, and because there are more troops to fight this increases the viral/bacterial ass-kicking.

Other animals have fevers too. Iguanas try to maintain a body temperature of about 98.6 (like us), but unlike us they are “cold blooded” (scientists prefer the term “ectotherm”) meaning they have to get warm from external sources. Us mammals are “warm blooded” (scientists prefer the term “endotherm”) meaning we actually generate body heat. And while iguanas have to heat up under the sun, if they’re sick they’ll allow themselves to get quite a bit warmer, up to about 104 degrees. They induce fevers. Interesting, no?

It just so happens that one of the things I’ve been studying in preparation for this big exam is homeostasis, so I was thinking about all of this and pondering why, on top of all the other symptoms, do fevers effect cognition? I’m absolutely useless in this state. Trying to study with a fever is kinda like trying to play darts with bouncy balls. Hilarious, but fruitless.

In the middle of the night as I woke up, sweaty and disgusting, and reached over for my thermometer I realized I was singing the Adele song, Rolling in the Deep. I frequently have musical dreams and hear songs playing in my head, so it wasn’t completely strange, but I was really amused when it occurred to me that I was probably singing to the fever. And it was a really astute choice on the part of my subconscious. Well done, brain.

The first time I ever pulled it up on a friend’s laptop I wasn’t sure how he’d react. He’s a gamer, so I knew it was either going to be a hit or he’d think I was a little nutty. But the next time we talked he told me that he’d shown it to three people the very next day.

If you are the only other person on the planet who hasen’t seen the Kutiman mash-up you really should. It’s pretty fly.

I love how cautious big announcements are in science. We’ve been wrong as a species so many times that now whenever there’s even the slightest possibility that we could be debunked in the future we offer up the new evidence like we’re geeky adolescent boys trying to get a date for prom. “Um, I mean, do you think that you might consider the idea that we maybe could have a new particle? I totally understand if not, in fact, it’s probably a crazy idea. I’ll just go now.”

There’s good reason for the caution, but it sure doesn’t make it any less anticlimactic. If this were depicted on a TV show, there would be a strong claim of discovery backed by triumphant music and the intensity of Sweeps Week.

Maybe I’ve just watched too many episodes of The West Wing lately. Speaking of, everyone saw Aaron Sorkin on 30 Rock, right?

And I do.

This talk, by Dan Gilbert, is one of those that I wish I could show to each and every person I meet. The tired saying that happiness “comes from within” gets a whole lot less tired and abstract in just twenty minutes. If this doesn’t have you cocking your head to the side and uttering a silent, “whoa,” every few minutes, check your pulse.

Dear Rocketship Underpants, I’ve missed you. And though I don’t have oodles of time to give you right now, I’d like to at least hang out every once and a while again. Deal? Deal.

In the flavor of all things Rocketship Underpantsy I’m gonna share a few trailers. Full confession: I love trailers. Sometimes instead of watching a movie I’ll get on Hulu and watch trailers instead. For a lot of movies they’re the best part and they give you the whole plot in two minutes. Most recently the trailer that’s tugged at me is for Super, which just came out Friday and looks promising.

Not related, but I just had to share this bumper from SXSW that puts all the drug jokes about Mario et al. that have ever been uttered into one fake trailer. That alone wouldn’t have been enough to charm, but it’s also chock full of references to the actual games. This is one of those ideas that’s so overdue I feel like I’ve already seen it—and yet I want to watch it again.

They should actually make it into a movie. It’s bound to be better than the 1993 version, which I remember really enjoying at the age of nine.

I’m hoping to kick-start this thing again and a new look was the first step. My designer whipped this up. I’ll post a link with proper credit soon.

My first year of grad school ends in a month. I cannot express to you just how ambivalent I am about that fact.

New York is wild in a way I never expected. Subway lines stop running, grocery stores rarely list prices (and never have scales), garbage is piled in the streets, poop is everywhere on the streets, smelly strangers are pushed together (sometimes literally!). And then there are the storms. I’m told this isn’t entirely normal, but in my two months here I’ve seen four really great storms. The last one was the best.

I didn’t even know it was raining.  When I’d walked through Columbia’s campus to the subway entrance the wind was pushing everyone around, but it was still warm and dry. On the long commute to Brooklyn a lot can happen. I found out that it was raining when it started sprinkling in the subway.

“This is Clark Street” said the subway voice lady and when the train doors opened, water trickled in. The one tiny lady getting off at the Clark stop hesitated before going under the water. She darted through, the doors closed, we moved on.

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the New Yorker’s fear of rain. The sky so much as shivers and they all whip out their umbrellas. As we traveled south the water that fell when the train doors opened got increasingly more intense until it was just a wall of water and everyone still on the train huddled in the middle of the car so as not to get splashed.

At the Hoyt stop no one stepped off the train, but we all leaned forward to get a better look at the gushing geyser that had formed out of a drain in the middle of the platform.

When I got to my stop, myself and three other people dashed through the wall of water to find a new situation. Thirty people were standing in a semi-circle surrounding the opening to the subway station. They’d stepped back just far enough so that the water running down the steps pooled before it got to their feet. Every few seconds, a few of them leaned over to look out and see if it was still really coming down hard out there. It was.

I said, ”Excuse me,” and walked up the steps. The water that fell was surprisingly cold. I looked up to see the Brooklyn Museum backlit by lightening. The streets filled with water and ice from an apparent session of hail that I’d also missed. I was soaked from the head down and waded through water until it wicked up my boots to my thigh. A firetruck drove by me. I was the only person without an umbrella or a newspaper on my head. I smiled to the EMTs, they waved and hooted back. The differentiation between sidewalk and street was dissolved in ten inches of water. In trying to avoid it I soaked my calves.

I climbed the stairs to my apartment, changed, showered, and sat, wrapped in a fleece blanked as the the rain still poured down. I wondered then how long those tough New Yorkers had waited for the rain to let up.

This semester is in full swing and my speed-reading abilities are catching up quick. I will be reading about 34 books for classes this term. That does not account for the reading I do of other students’ writing for workshop or the reading I do to research my own writing projects. And I can’t believe I’m saying this but, I am having more fun than I have ever had in my life. Ever. My classes are full of intelligent, funny people who have become my friends. And these people are just as overwhelmed and energized as I am. It’s intense to even be in a room full us.

Speaking of us, there are 200 people in the program, so they recently gave us a little face book (like a real one!) of all our names and email addresses below a photo they took of us the first day. They took these photos with an entire room of people watching, like some sort of test of moral strength. Dare to fuss with your hair and you’re bound to look vain, but don’t fix your hair and that cowlick will be in the photo for the whole two-year program. Most of the photos show my classmates with shy, slightly awkward smiles. Most look a nice mix of terrified and trying to hide it.

My picture doesn’t look scared. Mine looks scary. As in, I’m not feeling terrified, I’m trying to terrify others. Probably adorable children.

I’ve inserted a jump so it has more impact. Nice, right?

And, horrified, I called up my friend, Anne Marie.

“You have to see this. It’s awful. Look at all the normal photos of normal people.”

She opened the document, looked at the photos.

“Now, I know when you’ll get to mine because you’re bound to la–”

She laughed for about five minutes. And then between gasps for air, managed to say, ”I know that face. Where do I know that face? It’s like burned into my mind. I’ve seen that before.” She laughed for awhile longer. ”Ohhhh, right,” She said. “You know that mask Kenneth Branagh wears at the ball in Much Ado About Nothing?”

Dead ringer, Anne Marie. Well done.