Bugged!

[rejectomorph]

It's gotten colder than I expected. The clouds went away. I expect that the leaves will turn color faster now. The next rain we get is apt to be icy. I miss the milder autumn rains of Los Angeles. Something else I miss is having been mostly human a couple of hours ago. I just found out, from an article in National Geographic that I ought not to have read, that I have (and everybody else has) ten times as many microbial cells as human cells!

I knew about all those little digesters that live in my intestines, and the little critters that live in my eyelashes and eat dead skin cells, but I always thought of them as being a bit like helpful hitchhikers. But that my own cells (though they aren't my cells, really) should be mostly of some other species than the one I've mistakenly thought myself to be is just terribly unnerving. In fact, I'm somewhere between 500 and 1000 other species. So is George Bush. The President is actually a colony of non-human species! We are being ruled by bugs! No wonder things haven't been going well!

The article is not available in the Geographic's online edition. Consider yourself lucky that you can't read it! I'm going to have a hard time sleeping today, I think. The microbes probably won't, though, so I ought to be 90% rested even if I never close my eyes again.

Comments

[chance88088.livejournal.com]

I should be mostly some other species than the one I've mistakenly thought myself to be is just terribly unnerving. In fact, I'm somewhere between 500 and 1000 other species. So is George Bush. The President is actually a colony of non-human species! We are being ruled by bugs!

You are totally creeping me out.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

Would you suggest, in my job interviews, mentioning that though I am not a hard worker, the microbes that make up 90% of me seem industrious enough?

[m-leprae.livejournal.com]

The President is actually a colony of non-human species! We are being ruled by bugs! No wonder things haven't been going well!

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords!

[rejectomorph]

Probably only less than 10% of you is creeped out, when you think about it.

[rejectomorph]

Only if it's true. The Interviewer's microbes will know if it isn't.

[rejectomorph]

That's the microbes talking!

[marseille.livejournal.com]

God, I usually read that sort of thing, but I've been too sick and exhausted to do anything except work and race back & forth from my mom's place...
Thanks for the warning. Even thinking about as much as you've said...ugh.

[rejectomorph]

It turns out that, about over 90% of the cells in a human body are non-human microbes, the little buggers only add up to about half a pound of cells. Apparently, humans have a tendency to be obese even at the cellular level.