Evolution of Cute

I am at work today, though I shouldn't be. I had a bunch of experiments to tend to today that couldn't be neglected. I am trying, though, to get everything done today so that I can not come in tomorrow if I am still feeling bad.

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I got home last night at about 6:00 and started to watch March of the Penguins and kept falling asleep.

This is mainly due to my being sick, but is partially due to March of the Penguins being extremely boring. Everyone loved this movie and I don't understand why. I liked it, but it was just ok. Nothing special. Why the enthusiasm? Anyone? Anyone?

There were cool things, things I didn't know about penguins, things that are difficult to believe, as in "Wow, penguins are nuts." I am a fan of the animal documentary, so I appreciated it on that level, but am glad that I didn't pay $10.75 to see it.

I kept thinking, while I was conscious, about the evolution of "cute." I understand why we are preprogrammed to think that human babies are cute. But why do we also gush over other baby things? Those baby penguins were so cute I couldn't handle it. And why are we programmed to think that little furry things are especially cute? Maybe so we know that they are harmless and don't attack them? But wouldn't primitive humans rather dine on harmless, little, easy-to-capture fuzzy things than gigantic, meatier, things that could kill them? Maybe its an instinct to protect us from killing baby things and then being attacked by the baby things ferocious parents. Or, maybe primitive man didn't hunt things that could kill primitive man so there wouldn't have to be a bias towards the harmless. It's just an interesting phenomenon... why humans want to touch furry things... and why we want domesticated animals. Ew.

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I'm feeling a bit better today than I was yesterday, but I can't remember if I mailed back March of the Penguins or not. I swear it was in my bag, but I have no recollection of dropping it into the mailbox. Did I? Would I have been coherent enough this morning to remember? This is crucial as I want another movie by the weekend, but if I didn't mail it I may be too late. I definitely won't remember to look for it tonight when I get home from the theater, so hopefully I was with it enough this morning to mail it but not with it enough to remember that I mailed it.

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On top of not remembering if I mailed the DVD, I felt like it took me three hours to walk to work this morning. You know when you're feeling sick your sense of time is weird? My walk from the train to work is about 5 minutes, but it felt like eternity.

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While I was walking, I was pondering my changing taste in music again, and wondering why this happens to people. I always thought I'd be immune to a change in musical taste, that I'd be into hip hop and indie rock type stuff forever. As time goes by, I tend towards more sedate music. I'm still listening to new things constantly, but what I would have liked even a year ago seems too abrasive for me now. I don't have the ability to find good hip hop, because it is harder to find and there is less of it and because most of it is average. It requires patience, which is something else I am losing over time. I am afraid that I may one day say "Can you TURN THAT NOISE DOWN!?"

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This makes me nervous, because what if I stagnate? What if I reach an age where I stop listening to new music, and I just listen to everything I listened to whenever I stopped caring about newness in my life? This happened with dance music... I am forever frozen wanting to dance to the songs I danced to from 1997 - 2002, with the occasional early 90's rap tune thrown in there.

I think this happens to people... like parents, for example, do not buy CDs. They may have bought CDs of things they once had on tapes or records, but its not like parents are reading Spin magazine.

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Then again, my parents didn't have things like Pitchfork (not that I read Pitchfork, but I'm just using it as an example) to keep them aware of music. It was harder for people to find out about new things. Music didn't get around so easily, so instantly, so quickly, and there was probably less of it. Maybe this means that our generation won't stagnate musically, and that we'll constantly be aware of what's going on.

We may just not like they way it sounds, though, because our tastes are apparently genetically programmed to change over time.

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I think I am going to take some Dayquil, and then I am to celebrate PW's birthday with a long lunch.