No use crying when it's spilled...

[arib]

Alright, I've been a dad for almost six weeks now. I'm just gonna come right out and say it:

Lactation is weird.

I mean, I get it. We're mammals. Along with the body hair and live births, it's what we do.

It's just weird.

I guess it beats chewing up worms or looking for carrion, or stuffing pollen into storage sacks on my legs to turn into honey later on.

Comments

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

I beg to differ: sleep is weirder.

We spend a lot of money to spend a third of our lives in a ridiculously vulnerable state. It's obviously vital to our health, but how did it even come about? How did we get enough sleep before we got to the top of the food chain?

Every night I go to sleep in a nice part of town but on the first floor. Anyone could smash the window near my head and murder me. Instead the state cruiser parked down the block and moves about once a month seems to be a major deterrent. There are heavy social contracts involved in letting me snore and avoid all stimuli for high amounts of time.

How did we evolve toward long sleep? How can we go from writhing and jabbering fools to inactive logs so quickly? We're clearly pack animals but...

[nightshade1972.livejournal.com]

I was born with neurological problems, including a seizure disorder. I've found that I really can't function on anything less than 9-10 hours' sleep; any less and I get dizzy spells, headaches, and my gait/balance is impaired (more so than usual). When I was working full time, I never could figure out why getting the "normal" eight hours a night still left me feeling lousy the next morning. As it stands now, I still feel lousy on what, for me, is a full nights' sleep, but at least the lousiness is less painful/intrusive than headaches or dizzy spells.

[arib.livejournal.com]

Try explaining sleep to a species of alien that doesn't need it.

"If you don't mind, I'm going to go into that room over there, turn off the lights, lose all voluntary control over my body, and hallucinate vividly for the next six to eight hours."

[dmmaus.livejournal.com]

Nitpick alert, for which I apologise in advance. Bees make honey out of nectar, not pollen. The pollen is simply food.

Uh... I guess I should say something about your actual topic. This is weirder. :-)

[arib.livejournal.com]

Very true. Glad they mentioned the new Silurians.