Of Math and Pasta

God people here are smart. Stephanie insists that they only talk smart; I cannot help but feel being able to talk smart about multiplicative vs. additive number theory belies some semblance of the real thing. Seriously, this was an actual debate in my apartment last night. Granted, it was assisted by massive quantities of wine and beer, but I'm not sure if that makes it more or less impressive. Stephanie and I had a few guests over, and they spent a good part of the evening debating whether one should study multiplicative or additive number theory first. They were debating with an intensity that would put health-care followers to shame. Except, they actually knew what they were talking about! WTF? Since when do debates involve any actual knowledge? What about the pictures of dead...um...addition signs? The cleverly worded statistics about the number of annual deaths from prime factorization? Where were the catchy slogans? Given my penchant for poetry (oooh, alliteration) and my complete cluelessness, I would have been awesome with the last:
"God Hates Factors!"
"Plus, minus, minus, plus! Additive's the thing for us!"
"Additive number theory? That's a lie! It won't tell you if p divides xy!"
For the record, I did not actually have anything to drink (except Diet Coke, naturalment). I'm not sure if I should be admitting that.

Speaking of clumsy transitions, the world needs to know (YES IT DOES OK THIS IS MY BLOG SO THERE) that I have successfully made pasta salad. In itself, this is not impressive, and rather like boasting that I successfully went to the grocery store. Actually, given my issues with doors and directions (and shopping, and food,...), the latter is actually a pretty big deal. Wow, now that I think about it, I should have taken the rest of the day off after that. But I digress. I'm good at that.
The reason my pasta salad deserves such a broadcast has to do with the resulting circumstances:
1. Our kitchen, and all accouterments, is still intact. For the record, I am probably not using 'accouterments' correctly, but I am far too good a poet to care about such trifles. I would never pass up the opportunity to use a word that used to mean "the act of accoutering." I don't know what accoutering is, but I can tell I'd be a BAMF at it.
2. Only one of my fingertips is burned. Now only 9 more salads and my inability to open doors stand between me and a successful life of crime.
3. Neither Stephanie nor I have (has? discuss.) succumbed to food poisoning in the last half hour.
4. No one has thought to use my salad as building material.

I'll just be cooling my heals until the applause dies down. No idea how I burned those.