Interesting "Advances"

 A section I find quite interesting to think about is the sections at the end of Chapter 2 and beginning of Chapter 3, where the narrator talks about "major advances" he's discovered from others. One advance he describes to be "the act of brushing your tongue", which stands out a bit. He mentions that his love interest, L. had always brushed her tongue as well as her teeth, which gets rid of bad breath. To me, when I read this, I thought it was common knowledge as L. does too, since most of the bacteria accumulates on the tongue. However, as Howie further analyzes the idea of "tongue-brushing" and what separates it from regular "tooth-brushing" (which was strictly confined to the teeth and gums in his opinion), it gets the reader to think a bit on why is that, and this thought enlightens Howie so much that he starts brushing his entire mouth including the roof. I also relate to his other advancement, which was cleaning when feeling down. When he discovered that cleaning a room or apartment actually cheers one up, he learned this idea from Sue, his co-worker. I too, find it strangely calming to clean up a mess as it provides one with the sense of small accomplishment and productivity, and usually being productive is known to help the brain produce serotonin and keeps one in a cheerful mood. This also has to do with keeping an organized workspace, as it's usually easier to go about the rest of your day when everything is properly organized and tidied. The notion that Howie has too much fun cleaning is definitely prevalent, as he once described sweeping as "making him wildly cheerful", which I think is a bit too much for such a simple activity, but there's no judgement here. In fact, he adopts daily sweeping into his lifestyle which is a bit odd but at least he's productive!