Wednesday, February 23

a metric non-grove

It was ridiculous that I stood in front of the mirror for an hour, just holding my cup of Nyquil, indecisive as to whether or not I wanted to take it, whether it was too late to take it, and whether it would hurt me more than it would help me. My aversion to medicine is ridiculous. As I stood in front of that mirror, examining it far to well for my liking, well enough to realize that the little dots in the corner are popped zits, I tried to rationalize taking the medicine. "It's just like taking two acetaminophens, only with stuff to knock me out. It smells like it might taste okay. " And then I'd swirl the bottle with its warning labels like wallpaper and watch the shiny liquid, the unwholesome blood of groggy, cherry-flavored entities, and the debate would start all over again. Indecision brought me to the couch to mull over the dilemma, and play a bit of Mario.

That brought me to two am, when I decided it would be better to stay awake all night and get to class than be well-rested the next day and have missed two classes (again). As usual, I failed at this, slept through philosophy and bio, and woke up at 12:00 when Dan came to bother me and bring me to the pagan group meeting. "The new guy," Nick, came and we all introduced ourselves. A decent meeting.

Everyone around me uses the word "grove" incorrectly. As an English major, that pisses me off. Next time someone does it, I'm going to make them look stupid, no matter who it is. Then again, they'll probably just get into some imbecilic argument and protest that "this is how we use the word." A grove is a group of trees or druids; a grove is not a clearing.

I did some good research for my anti-metric article. As I already knew, a meter is one 10 millionth of a certain meridian which goes through Paris. What I didn't know was that all metric weights come from the very first measurement of the gram: one cubic centimeter of water, as the US government publication so nicely put it, at maximum density. In other words, the French made themselves an ice cube which would become the basis of all metric weights. As for measurements of volume? I just can imagine some French guy exclaim, "Let's make another ice cube! A really big ice cube!" Thus, a one cubic decimeter ice cube was made, melted, maybe spilled on the floor, and proclaimed a "liter." Someday, someone should patent the liter ice cube and sell it to fast food and coffee chains, so they have a conventient way of filling your cup 90% full of ice and saving money on ice crushing. Not that King Henry I's idea for the standard yard was the most scientific thing... but ice cubes?

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