whilst studying:

If I can fervently drink his tears, wrote Jean Genet, why not the so limpid drop on the end of his nose? To this we can reply: first that nasal secretions are not so limpid as tears. They are more like treacle than water. When a thick rheum oozes from the eye it is no more apt for poetry than nasal rheum. But admittedly clear, fast-running tears are the stuff of romantic poetry: they do not defile. This is partly because tears are naturally pre-empted by the symbolism of washing. Tears are like rivers of moving water. They purify, cleanse, bathe the eyes, so how can they pollute?
-- Mary Douglas, Purity and danger: An analysis of the concepts of pollution and taboo, p. 125.

in other news, i've one week to write 75% of my dissertation.
YAY.