ah, delight!

A collection of wonderful things I've read recently:

1. It's not how you look, it's how you look at the world. (This was an online dater's headline, which I found absolutely charming.)

2. From the NY Times (in a great article on aphrodisiacs):
"[C]hocolate’s reputation as an aphrodisiac is highly exaggerated, food researchers say. Romantic and deeply pleasurable, yes, especially because of its tendency to melt in the mouth at body temperature. And yes, it does contain some chemicals like phenylethylamine, which produce feelings of euphoria. Yet one widely cited study showed that a 130-pound person would have to eat 25 pounds of chocolate in one sitting to significantly alter the mood. But who would be in the mood after eating 19.2 percent of her weight in chocolate?"

and later, it says:

"In one small experiment on sexual response to food scents, vaginal and penile blood flow was measured in 31 men and women who wore masks emitting various food aromas. This was the study that found men susceptible to the scent of doughnuts mingled with licorice. For women, first place for most arousing was a tie between baby powder and the combination of Good & Plenty candy with cucumber. Coming in second was a combination of Good & Plenty and banana nut bread."

[First off, who but destitute college students would volunteer for these kinds of measurements? And second, wouldn't it be embarrassing if you had an abnormal response to something like the smell of, say, egg salad?]

3. From Amy Bloom's book, Where the God of Love Hangs Out,
"[S]he told him that she'd heard that young men shaved their balls now. Ray lifted his head and asked her if she would like that. I guess I would, she said. Is it unpleasant otherwise? Ray said. Oh, I don't know, Ellie said. It's like a mouthful of wet mitten -- what do you think?"