Sunday, January 4, 2009

Deep Thoughts

by Jack Handy......er, I mean.......Erin M.

1. Wouldn't it be cool if you could take off your arms before you go to bed? I'm a side sleeper, and I often wake up with my arms dead and wooden beneath me. That's a most disconcerting feeling, even though I know that I've simply lain on them too long. It still skeeves me out, because it's like being in the embrace of a corpse. Also, I have yet to find a pillow that is really excellent for side sleepers, so I often wake up with a crick in my neck or an ache in my scrunched up shoulder. However, you'd have to be really careful. One of you would have to leave an arm on each night. Otherwise, you'd have no way to get them back on. Imagine waking up having to pee, and realizing you cannot untie your pajama bottoms or pull down your pants. God forbid the lid is closed. Imagine looking at your arms, dangling limply there where you hung them up the night before; completely useless independant of your body. Maybe that's not such a good idea afterall.

2. What if the Scientologists have it right? Think about it. Why is being descended from a master race of aliens any crazier than the traditionally accepted theological explanation of human genesis? In fact, it might be slightly less crazy than the concept of people springing forth from clay and/or constructed from a single rib bone. But don't tell Tom Cruise I said so. I don't want that smug bastard and his extraterrestrial Jesus knocking on my door any time soon.

3. Do you ever wonder if cats and dogs can really speak and understand English, but choose not to let us know that they can?I mean...it just seems to me that when you live with people for an extended period of time, say....8 years or so...you pick a few things up.

4. I think I have discovered an actual disorder. I need to contact the New England Journal of Medicine, because this could be BIG. It's called "Male Pattern Blindness."How else do you account for the fact that both my husband and my male children, despite being given very detailed directions on where to find a given item, will look right at it, and yet not see it? Why else would said husband and children walk past a laundry basket and/or various belongings piled neatly at the bottom of the stairs and never carry it up? I once did an experiment with Husband's PC Magazines. They sat at the bottom of the stairs for 3 weeks. I figure that's about 2100 trips. And he never even saw the stupid things. And how else do you explain the fact that my husband still finds me sexy, despite the cottage cheese on my thighs and a roadmap of the entire Western Hemisphere on my belly? Now, if only I could find a cure. THAT would be big.

5. Why don't ears sprout during puberty? I don't know about yours, but my kids do not need ears. They don't use them. They are thoroughly useless little appendages. Women don't need breasts prior to giving birth, therefore evolution has biologically programmed us to grow them only after our bodies are capable of bearing children. I think the same should apply to ears. They should grow only after one develops the capacity for listening. Maybe puberty would not be the ideal time. For men it would be about 40, I think.

6. Everybody should sit down to pee.I would like to know who is to thank for the foolish notion that men must pee standing up. This, is not a concept borne of common sense. And I can almost gaurantee you that is not a practice that was conceived or endorsed by a woman.This is not a conversation that ever took place:

"Forsooth Good Wife, henceforth, I shall endeavor to relieve myself without soiling my buttocks upon the privvy seat. I shall accomplish this by taking judicious aim from a stance apace from yon aperature. What thinkest thou?"

"Good Husband, I think that thou art as clever as thou art handsome! T'is a wondrous idea for certain. I implore you to instruct our sons in this most novel practice."

Never. Happened.

It's really just a matter of physics. When you are going to fill a bucket with a garden hose, do you stand three feet away to do so? No. You put the nozzle down into the bucket. Why? Because water is not a cohesive substance. And neither is pee. It seems pretty simple to me. And yet, for centuries, the male collective has duped us into believing that sitting down to pee is, in some way, emasculating. What about cleaning the bathroom with your tongue? Is that emasculating? Because I'm truly to point where that is what's going to happen the next time I find pee in the waste basket that sits three feet to the left of the toilet, or the next time I sit down on a toilet seat liberally sprinkled with rapidly cooling urine in the middle of the night.

7. I was born a several centuries too late. I should have been born when the standard of female beauty was this:






Eh. It's just as well, I suppose. I don't think objectification is all it's cracked up to be. Besides, if I was happy with my body, then I would have to find something else with which to flagellate my tender self-esteem. At least I can change my body. Perhaps I should count myself lucky to have born in a century where I can sculpt my body and my face into whatever the currently accepted standards dictate as "beautiful".
8. Sometimes I think all the truly great men have already lived. I was thinking this the other day when I was watching Immortal Beloved. How many truly great men have been born in the last century? How many men this century have really changed the course of history with their bravery, their humanity, their talent or their trailblazing? I can think of a mere handful. The Time Top 100 lists Sascha Baron Cohen and Justin Timberlake for pity's sake. But I don't put much faith in that list anyway. There is a difference between being influential, and being truly great. I don't think most of the people on that list are truly great people. Influential? Yes. Revolutionary? Possibly. Talented? Some. But have most of them reached a pinnacle of greatness so profound that their name will always be remembered and become synonmyous with the field in which they excelled? No. I don't know, in this day and age with the corruption and moral profligacy and the ease with which one can achieve counterfeit celebrity, if it's even possible for a man, or woman, to be truly great. It's a thought that saddens me. But...I think that women are making up for it. We are just coming into our own as a sex. I think we can expect great things from women in the days to come. And that's a thought that gladdens me. Okay, that was an actual deep thought, thus negating the ironic humor of my title. But roll with it.
9. I wish I was a witch. When I was a kid, I used to twitch my nose like Samantha, and fantasize that it would actually work. I remember once twitching my nose at some girl who was making fun of me. She was like..."Did you just twitch your nose at me dweeb?" Back then, I would have used it mostly to get stuff I wanted (rainbow striped suspenders, a lemon twist, a Steve Austin action figure) and for revenge. Now I think...dayum, that would be a really freaking useful skill. Laundry piling up? Twitch. Dog puked on the carpet? Twitch. Kids' rooms smell like feet? Twitch. Paint color looks more like "pea soup" than "antique verdigris"? Twitch. Husband developing a bit of a spare tire? Twitch his ass into Vin Dieseldom. Sigh...it would be so awesome. I know, you guys think I'm all highbrow and intellectual and deep and stuff, but trust me, I've got a million of these ridiculous and quite pointless little snippets of thought running around in my head.
Please don't leave me hanging out here in dorkdom all by myself. C'mon and share one of your own "deep" thoughts in the comments. K?

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