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Aug. 30th, 2008 02:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
j_cheneyOnce again, I've been reading Psychology Today, which is such a fun little magazine sometimes. In the Sept/Oct issue, we have a lovely article called Cult of Clean, available free here online. This is, oddly enough, right up my alley.
If you've read one of my stories (or have beta-read the novel) with Shironne Anjir, you'll recall that she has a related problem. She senses things through her skin at the...molecular level. She's aware of everything that touches her skin (all of her skin, BTW) in a way that others are not. So yes, she's aware of every spot of urine on the floor or everything that gets left on her sheets or clothes during the laundering process. And at this point, I should probably cut for the squeamish...
This article deals with the truly deluded obsession with cleanliness that scientists are beginning to learn is counterproductive and quite unhealthful. There were some fascinating quotes in here, which reinforced things I already knew, but I love to read them.
The adult human body contains an estimated 100 trillion cells....But only 10 percent of theose cells actually belong to us. The rest are--are you ready for this?--germs. quoting Lynn Bvry, a microbiologist at Harvard Medical School.
Shironne has a moment in Dreaming Death where she tries not to reflect on the fact that the 'things' which are causing the bloating and decay in the dead bodies she's examining--are present in her own body. She knows it, but just tries not to worry about it. (She later learns that some children who develop her talent actually starve to death, because they can't bear eating the myriad germs they know they're consuming.)
This is probaby why I like this article so much, because it deals with an area that I had to do a lot of research on. Do you really want to know what bodily fluids end up where, what skin and hair get left behind, and which bits and splatters have the most DNA in them? You can find that info out there.
Bry further says If you were germ free this moment....you'd be dead within two weeks. I love that one.
They talk about some of the surprising places and not-so-surprising places that germs collect, and what you can do to reduce those.
The article then goes on to talk about why our society is obsessed with cleanliness, and the consequences of that. Women bear 2/3s of the cleaning responsibilty, they note, which means more responsibility for killing germs (added work, in other words). In addition, scientists are beginning to posit dozens of ways that the cleanliness freak-out is deleteriously affecting children.
Me? I've never been a clean freak, not in that way, and my week in the Outback pretty much killed what freakiness I did have. I like things tidy, but if I don't vacuum every day (or week) it's not going to kill me. (Believe me, I inhaled enough flies and camel dung that week to insure that the inside of my lungs are not pristine. Don't even ask what we ate.)
Anyhow, one of my favorite parts of the article is the parting shot, delivered by Ella Gudwin of AmeriCares. "The whole world is covered in a small film of fecal matter....Just get used to it."
Not all the articles in this magazine are a hit with me, but occasionally they get one I just love. Get used to it. ;o)
If you've read one of my stories (or have beta-read the novel) with Shironne Anjir, you'll recall that she has a related problem. She senses things through her skin at the...molecular level. She's aware of everything that touches her skin (all of her skin, BTW) in a way that others are not. So yes, she's aware of every spot of urine on the floor or everything that gets left on her sheets or clothes during the laundering process. And at this point, I should probably cut for the squeamish...
This article deals with the truly deluded obsession with cleanliness that scientists are beginning to learn is counterproductive and quite unhealthful. There were some fascinating quotes in here, which reinforced things I already knew, but I love to read them.
The adult human body contains an estimated 100 trillion cells....But only 10 percent of theose cells actually belong to us. The rest are--are you ready for this?--germs. quoting Lynn Bvry, a microbiologist at Harvard Medical School.
Shironne has a moment in Dreaming Death where she tries not to reflect on the fact that the 'things' which are causing the bloating and decay in the dead bodies she's examining--are present in her own body. She knows it, but just tries not to worry about it. (She later learns that some children who develop her talent actually starve to death, because they can't bear eating the myriad germs they know they're consuming.)
This is probaby why I like this article so much, because it deals with an area that I had to do a lot of research on. Do you really want to know what bodily fluids end up where, what skin and hair get left behind, and which bits and splatters have the most DNA in them? You can find that info out there.
Bry further says If you were germ free this moment....you'd be dead within two weeks. I love that one.
They talk about some of the surprising places and not-so-surprising places that germs collect, and what you can do to reduce those.
The article then goes on to talk about why our society is obsessed with cleanliness, and the consequences of that. Women bear 2/3s of the cleaning responsibilty, they note, which means more responsibility for killing germs (added work, in other words). In addition, scientists are beginning to posit dozens of ways that the cleanliness freak-out is deleteriously affecting children.
Me? I've never been a clean freak, not in that way, and my week in the Outback pretty much killed what freakiness I did have. I like things tidy, but if I don't vacuum every day (or week) it's not going to kill me. (Believe me, I inhaled enough flies and camel dung that week to insure that the inside of my lungs are not pristine. Don't even ask what we ate.)
Anyhow, one of my favorite parts of the article is the parting shot, delivered by Ella Gudwin of AmeriCares. "The whole world is covered in a small film of fecal matter....Just get used to it."
Not all the articles in this magazine are a hit with me, but occasionally they get one I just love. Get used to it. ;o)
