Atoms:

I remember learning once that in every breath you take, are molecules of air that George Washington breathed.

That everyone breathed.

That we're collections of atoms.

And then it dawned on me that (as far as my little brain can comprehend, without MUCH thought on the subject) that everything except for light and sound, is basically... atoms. Heat is fast-moving atoms. Touch is atoms resisting one another (but no two atoms can ever really TOUCH if they're not bonded, because of electronic repulsion)...

And smell...is atoms...

And I comprehended that we leave atoms everywhere. When I'm cooking on a pot that my gandmother cooked on, I feel comforted because her atoms are on the pot. When I'm in a place that I know a dead body lay for a while, or that was once really dirty, it creeps me out because atoms of the dead or dirt are still there.

Lauren touched one of the bodies at the Bodies exhibition, and then she touched me and I FUCKING FREAKED OUT (and still sort of hate her for it, because when I realized the bodies weren't in cases, I told her that if she touched one of the bodies, I wouldn't be her friend anymore, because I'd be so grossed out that she had dead body atoms on her fingers, and then she touched one and WIPED IT ON ME) because I had dead plastinated Chinese Corpse atoms on me... and it disgusted me, and made me feel "unclean."

There's a scene in "The Ice Storm" where Elijah Wood is giving a report about how all smells are caused by atoms, and that the next time you go into a stinky bathroom...you're breathing poop...

I have an "atoms" thing. As embarrassed as I am to admit it, becasue it was also Elijah Wood's obsession in the ice storm, but I am coming out with it. I am as much of a freak as Elijah Wood was in that movie. And he was a weird kid - like Super Weird in The Ice Storm.

If you eat seafood, I won't make out with you for maybe seven or eight hours, and until you've brushed your teeth and drank something, because then you'll have fish "atoms" in your mouth. I hate going into Funeral Homes and being around dead things, because air that has picked up atoms from the dead thing are going into me, and leaving atoms of dead body or dead thing, or embalmed icky corpse down the hall, in my lungs. In my mouth. On my eyeballs.

I manage to ignore this creepy realization, and psychotically irrational phobia, usually, and by most accounts live a very normal (for Miami) life, not shunning human contact and public spaces because of my "atom fear," and really the only times when I notice it is when I'm in a public bathroom... I shut off the faucet with a paper towel if I can, and usually try to pull the door handle with the paper towel, because I don't want poop atoms (even though I'm covered with them after having been in any bathroom [not to suggest that I poop in said bathrooms, but others have] on my hands.

If a workman in my house with bad teeth asks me for a drink of water and I give him one of my cups, I briefly think, with some disgust as I'm putting the cup in the dishwasher afterwards, about that icky workman's atoms on my glass, and how I hope they get washed off in the dishwasher...

Yeah. I know. Fucked up, right? In a restaurant if I see a really gross person eating something, I'll be glad I'm probably not going to get their current fork, but think suspiciously about the thousands of other nasty mouths that have been on my fork...

Now that I've realized it's an issue, I'll work through it. But not before I watch the person in front of me in line at the Subway Ticket Machine scratch their ears and then hit the "PRESS FOR TICKET" button, and think, "Ugh. Now I'm going to have that guy's earwax atoms on me..."