Once you hit 30, it's all downhill from there in that department.

When I was sick and SEVERLY hypothyroid, I was at my doc's office. She and her nurse were discussing how they were having trouble remembering things and that it happens at forty and gets worse from there.

Because of my hypo state, I was having some serious mental issues with speech aphasia and other things. I said, "Yeah, I think I understand what that feels like."

With all seriousness my doc rubbed my back and replied, "No, honey, you know what it feels like to be 80. And once you get on your meds, you'll go back to normal whereas I will just get worse!"

Actually made me feel a lot better at the time.

Hamlet Acts 4 and 5, a.k.a. "DIE DANISH MOTHAFUCKAS, DIE!!" and Romeo and Juliet, alias 13 IS TOO FUCKING YOUNG TO MARRY: SEE "DEATH."

Dude, I want to study all the Shakespeare with Erin now.

I like teaching Shakespeare. I kinda want to try to do a summer thing at the Folger next year; it'd be made of awesome.

I felt less stupid on ADs. I don't know if I was less stupid, but I felt less stupid. Migraines, on the other hand, are utterly and completely of the stupid making.

Once you hit 30, it's all downhill from there in that department.

Emotionally, I'm better than I was at 30, by a long shot. Getting off SSRI antidepressants made me better. Hypothyroid was making me brain-fuzzy, but that's better now too. Also? fish oil.

(Not to diss the SSRIs. They are life-savers for many people. But me, they made me worse. Apparently lack of serotonin is not my major malfunction.)

I wish Erin had taught Shakespeare in my school!

This conversation seems like the right place for a picture I saw today: [link]

This reminds me - Go Team Erin and Kristin with the mad Shakespeare-teaching skillz! I totally choked up when Kristin recounted the thing with the grandfather coming up and praising her teaching skillz.

Buffistas! Spreading the Shakespeare! And the Maths.

♥ Happy Anniversary to JZ and Hec! ♥

I'm much more relaxed when I'm stupid, so I really don't care at all. It was just surprising to realize it.

They make me more forgetful when I'm on them.

And yet they use (some) ADs to treat (some) ADD. Neuropharmacology is whack.

I think they might have given me ADD. Actually, ADD is probably a better description than stupid.

I'll take the loss of words in order to have the stable moods. I'm all for better living through chemistry.

I haven't lost words (although I swear my whole family has aphasia, anyhow, so maybe that should be 'any more words') but yeah -- I'll take the trade-off now that I no longer feel like I'm running into A BEAR three times a day.

Aw, happy anniversary, JZ and Hec!! I remember you guys getting married just around the time I joined.

I wish I'd read this a few days ago when we were having our "invisible moldy bread" discussion, but The NYTimes Dining section has an article scientifically exploring the 5-second rule.

Of course we can never know for sure how many harmful microbes there are on any surface. But we know enough now to formulate the five-second rule, version 2.0: If you drop a piece of food, pick it up quickly, take five seconds to recall that just a few bacteria can make you sick, then take a few more to think about where you dropped it and whether or not it’s worth eating.