anyone else's brain at any given time: (anything else)

my brain, afflicted and cursed: eating alfalfa seeds gives monkeys lupus-like autoimmune disease. eating alfalfa makes lupus mice sicker. eating alfalfa can really fucking hurt humans and cause immune system problems resembling lupus. or can worsen lupus. alfalfa. alfalfa seeds. alfalfa sprouts. an ingredient that you put on sandwiches and buy at the store. alfalfa, the plant with a friendly name. medicago sativa. funny how it is called "medic" when it can make someone need a medic. also called lucerne. the same name given to a city in switzerland, in the german-speaking portion of switzerland. do they know? do they know what alfalfa does? how do they feel about alfalfa? alfalfa, the perennial flowering plant in the legume family fabaceae. used to feed livestock since the era of ancient greeks and romans. it has a tetraploid genome, did you know? I know this now because if alfalfa can be so dangerous and I have gone so many years without knowing, what else is alfalfa fucking hiding? aside from its extensive history of harboring salmonella and e. coli. I already knew that. the L-Canavanine content is higher in seeds than in sprouts. but it is in sprouts too. alfalfa can interact with blood thinners, birth control pills, estrogens in human. it can reduce fertility in sheep and cattle. and it is not even just alfalfa with that awful amino acid. the mung bean. the green gram. the vigna radiata. used as a popular plant-based protein substitute like beyond meat and just egg. the delicious mung bean, sprouted in such a perfect way that it usually just gets called bean sprout. the bean sprout. the one delicious bean sprout, which I have loved for many years. a love that I find out now was betraying me. I used to sprout mung beans. I would watch video after video on mung bean sprouting. I did it many times. it was easy. bean sprouts become more robust when you add weight on top of them as they grow. I would eat handfuls of long and thick bean sprouts at a time. I have always asked for extra bean sprouts in my meals. they take sauce so naturally, so easily. and not one single resource on sprouting mung beans ever said that eating a ton of mung beans could ever be bad. that there are diseases where you should avoid eating mung beans. diseases that can be worsened by eating mung beans and alfalfa. I never knew. I never fucking knew. this information has been in my life less than a week and it is already taking over my brain. how many other common foods are hiding dangerous secrets? how many other common things at the store, common ingredients on a sandwich, common ingredients in a delicious bibimbap, common ingredients in plant-based protein and egg substitutes and meat substitutes can send someone to a hospital without them ever knowing why? we live in such a scary world. and all along I have been telling people that sprouting mung beans is fun and easy and safe. I had no idea. I contributed to the false sense of security with mung beans. I have been part of the problem. I just stubbed my toe writing this post. this is my punishment for sharing my love of bean sprouts with the world. I need to tell everyone. I need to tell everyone that mung beans and alfalfa can cause autoimmune activity. I need to tell everyone that mung beans and alfalfa can cause a human's immune system to attack its own body. eating alfalfa or mung bean sprouts might even help trigger autoimmune disease in people with genetic risks for autoimmunity. and avoiding eating mung bean and alfalfa might reduce someone's chance of developing autoimmune disease. how vile. how repulsive. make no mistake. canavanine toxicity has killed people. it likely killed christopher mccandless, the subject of jon krakauer's book and subsequent movie into the wild. he ate seeds of the alpine sweetvetch, which also contains this awful amino acid. when sprouted the roots taste like young carrots. where can I even fucking go from here. I thought I had a friend in mung bean, I thought I could trust alfalfa, I thought there was no harm, and it was all a lie. it was all a big fucking lie.

i like working at plant store. sometimes you ring up someone and there's a slug on their plant and so you're like "Oh haha you've got a friend there let me get that for you" and you put the slug on your hand for safekeeping but then its really busy and you dont have time to take the slug outside before the next customer in line so you just have a slug chilling on your hand for 15 minutes. really makes you feel at peace with nature. also it means sometimes i get to say my favorite line which is "would you like this free slug with your purchase"

in the tradition of outcast (2014), dragon blade (2015), and the great wall (2016), we need a movie set in the 1630s where a disillusioned member of the embroidered uniform guard and a profit-driven jianghu mercenary flee the corrupt and crumbling ming dynasty and somehow end up in the equally corrupt city of cologne, where they become key players in the fight against the sinister forces of cardinal richelieu and eventually secure the peace of westphalia and the end of the thirty years’ war. this is a million dollar idea i’m telling you

There's kind of a funny bind known to those of us whose fundamental flaw involves something like the inability to ever attempt anything, when it comes to trying to find your experience reflected in art, because you know by definition all the people making the stuff you're looking at are the kind of people who attempt things

Happy spring <3

ALT

Murray Kupferman (1897-2002)

The Pigeon Fancier, c. 1960s

Oil on canvas

On display at The New York Historical “Pets in the City” show [1980.57]

“Pigeons are among New York City's most iconic residents. Many people, especially lonely urbanites, are drawn to them and their hypnotic waddling and cooing.

Sometimes known as rock doves, they are largely harmless and gentle.

Because pigeons are social birds, they often hang out in groups called flocks or kits. Since they are monogamous and mate for life, they tend to stick to familiar friendship groups for safety.”

In other SCAdian updates, I did kidnap an Easterner and hold her for ransom.

I was told that this was criminal activity that would not stand, and also that I ought to prepare myself for war.

(I mean, come on. I'm a loyal Atlantian subject, I wouldn't go kidnapping people we weren't already going to war against!)

There will definitely be zero consequences to me kidnapping foreigners and holding them for ransom. Zero. I think Nika has like a million squire-brothers but I'm not scared of them kidnapping me. I've got two swords. That's twice as many as most fighters have. And I'm Atlantian.

My knight says I'm only allowed to kidnap people if I share the ransom, so I'm only getting half a jar of pickles out of this.

Did you guys know the whole "achilles was dipped in the waters of the Styx by his heel and was otherwise invulnerable " thing isn't in the iliad. He's just divinely favored. Like it's vastly later addition. And people include it in the standard telling. Pteh! Too mechanical!

Did you guys know the whole "achilles was dipped in the waters of the Styx by his heel and was otherwise invulnerable " thing isn't in the iliad. He's just divinely favored. Like it's vastly later addition. And people include it in the standard telling. Pteh! Too mechanical!