Let's talk about sex -- even though it's not allowed

... A dispatch from bewilderness

I’m glad I live in a time when I could see my baby cousins or hear a great new album or travel to the moon without getting out of bed.  or I could if I had cousins or knew of any great albums or could travel to the moon without getting out of bed.

Or even just get out of bed. I broke my back or five bones in it, so for a while, each departure from the mattress was quite an achievement. Then I had two procedures to cement me together and will have a third on June 26.

Really. The procedure cementing me together is called kyphoplasty. The upside is: You can get out of bed again with a contraption, of course, that helps. You can also walk and sit (at least briefly) if you wear a back brace that feels even worse than it looks, and manage to push a rollator, too. See below. Rollators don’t look like this.

I’m on a painkiller, so this post may sound like…well, like I’m on a painkiller, as in a bit disjointed. The pics may seem disjointed, too. Which leads me to the human brain.

The human brain has let us send space probes to the moon and Mars, make explosives out of household items, decimate countries, species, rainforests, plus millions of humans, and pollute air, land and sea. Among other accomplishments.

That said, only one thing really matters, and it’s none of the above. It’s the tendency of things to help or hinder reproduction, without which we wouldn’t be here at all.

Somehow, for 3.8 billion years, every one of your ancestors on both sides was attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to procreate, and alive long enough to do so.

During those 3.8 billion years, your ancestors have grown fins, flippers, scales, snouts, hooves, paws, claws, and limbs. They’ve laid eggs and lived in trees. Some could swim, slither, walk, talk. Some could not live with oxygen. Others could not live without it.

Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, squished, drowned, devoured, or detoured  from delivering genetic material to the right partner at the right time.