I have just seen evidence that the world is ending. That’s right. I saw a commercial for high-fructose corn syrup.

Man complains of heat. Woman offers him a popsicle.
“No thanks,” says Man. “It has high-fructose corn syrup in it.”
“What’s wrong with that?” asks Woman, looking flirty and tempting.
“Well… um… hmm…” Man can’t think of the exact reason.
“What? That it’s made from corn? C’mon… it doesn’t have any more calories than honey.”

All of this was paid for the Corn Refiners Association… who aren’t biased at all…. who apparently feel that their beloved product needs some cultural rehabilitation.

This morning, Terry Gross started off her show by talking about the recent New Yorker cover that’s caused quite a bit of hue and cry. To get the discussion going, she read quotes from reviewers on either side of the debate, including one that wondered “how the joke play out in middle America.”

Hang on for a minute while I reconfigure my mental image of Mr. and Mrs. Middle America. Apparently they’re too unsophisticated to be included in the discussion about whether or not this was successful satire.

Since I felt ill today, I did as many people do when they find that standing up to get a drink feels like the equivalent of running a marathon: I read a book. It was not a good book, but it was entertaining and not mentally taxing. Not taxing, that is, until near the end when the main character battled a combination of major psychological stress (have you ever learned that you don’t exist and that your entire concept of yourself was fabricated by your covert ops unit? no? well, this guy has), physical injury, and (since that clearly wasn’t enough at this climactic moment in the plot) altitude sickness. Corny, right? Right. But even so, it hurt. So now I’m squirming a little, but I’m also laughing at myself for getting that invested in such a corny plot.

p.s. If this post didn’t make any sense to you, here’s the backstory and my clarification of some points.

As I begin this week, I will remember two things…

• Life is generally going well. It’ll get even better when Pippin comes back, my sister comes to visit, and my presentation on Thursday is over. (Yes, it’ll be a full week.)
• There are people out there who deal with a lot. I can probably help them somehow, even if it’s just by listening, because I am not actually dealing with a lot.

Also, since I just figured out that my online connectivity varies inversely with my need for connection, I’ll work on fixing that.

I hate lipstick, lip balm, lip gloss, or anything else that begins with “lip” and involves applying anything to the named area. You’d think this would bother me because it’s essentially like eating wax and make-up, but actually that’s not bulk of the problem. No, the problem is that it feels odd, tastes icky, and smells bad (even if you get unscented lip[stuff]). Seriously, who’s idea was it to perfume lipstick? Did nobody look at a human face and realize that the nose is in the near vicinity of the lips? Even people who wear perfume don’t generally anoint their upper lips. They generally perfume things far away from their noses, like wrists.

And why don’t people seem to care that it tastes terrible? I mean… lips and mouths are pretty connected, and tongues (generally located inside of mouths) happen to be the parts of us that do most of our tasting. A couple of brands seem to have tried to remedy this by flavoring their lip[stuff], but that’s really no better. I don’t like fake fruit taste even in foods, so I’m definitely not a fan of fake fruits infused with wax and dust and silly putty.

Speaking of silly putty, lips are some of the most touch-sensitive areas on our bodies. You think they won’t notice a layer of stuff sitting on them?

Not only that, but it comes off, and you have to reapply it, and then it tastes, smells, and feels weird again. Personally, I prefer to do my hair and get made up once per day at the most. More than that is just annoying.

So if I do wear lip[stuff], I’ll apply it once and then figure it’s had it’s chance for the day. And I will do this occasionally, though I don’t know why. But most of the time I’ll just conveniently forget that part of the morning routine.