The Great Flip
[ 1 Comment ] Posted on 02.08.05 in observations, random
I think that since those ancient folks separated time into fixed passages known as days, weeks and months, the intrinsic human mind has managed to separate other reified entities against the ever-present intangible backdrop of the passage of time.
Take, for example, our mental plus and delta chart of the events of the present: our proverbial tally marks seem to clump up in a sole column as any specific and predefined amount of time passes us by. Likewise, when the sun ducks underneath the horizon or when we’re forced to flip up a page in our calendars, so too do we flip up the pages of the mind and of the heart. After the Great Flip, we are faced with so much environmental newness that in order to be distracted by the follies of the present that are seared into meticulousness, we shift position until it is just different enough to invoke new feelings yet just similar enough to sneak its way into our boxes.
It happens to everyone all the time, but each individual’s schedule is different because if everyone were to make the Great Flip at the same time, the world would suck even more than Dr. Y tells us we say it does. I flipped when the clock struck 12:00AM Monday morning. I can only hope that the interim until my next flip is exceedingly short lived; I am so not used to this that I had to take the nail out of the wall to make the change because its head was too big for my largely unperturbed perforation.
I guess what I’m trying to say with this long, drawn out narrative is that this week sucks, but come Monday, it’ll be alright.
The last straw
[ 5 Comments ] Posted on 12.15.04 in advice, random
What classifies being a man? Is it chopping down trees with one swift swing of an axe? Or could it have something to do with killing a man with your bare hands? Or should it be mandated that in order for you to be considered a real man, you slap one of those bumper stickers on the back of your pickup telling the whole world of your prayer habits?
While all of these qualities are indeed conducive to existing as a man, the evolution into that state of being is wholly different.
Here’s a tip from the manliest of them all: Don’t use straws.
Yeah, I said it. Radical, is it not? Picture this: You sit down at a table, order your drink (which, at this point in my life cannot be legally alcoholic), and in a few minutes the servestress (or whomever) returns with a mug of frosty Coca Cola and a little plastic tube wrapped oh-so-sanitarily in paper. By tossing the straw to the side and swigging from the glass with your bare lips, you are exposing yourself to a world of potential infection from prior uses. But in essence by merely chugging from that glass you’ve said to that viral disease, “I’m not afraid of you, because a real man shouldn’t be.”
Because exams are over, this is all I have to think of.
Memory Monster
[ 1 Comment ] Posted on 10.25.04 in random
The elbows are the dirtiest places on my body. The only rationale behind this assertion is that, because the skin on the elbow is continually stretched and constricted with arm movement, the skin forms little pockets of dirt that cannot be washed off without some pretty extensive lathering.
For the past three weeks, I’ve been telling myself, “Self, you must wash your elbows!”
I remind myself of this only when I am high and dry. It seems that whenever I step into the shower, I enter a realm of the supernatural. The only logical hypothesis is that some memory-draining, awareness consuming monster must live in the shower pit and is kept in its blue and white cage with only a thin sheet of plastic hanging from a rusty aluminum rod.
I’ve failed to remind myself to pay special attention to these spots every day for the better part of a month. My ‘bows have gotten so grungy, fellow classmates in Spanish class could today see the brown spots and took no hesitation in pointing them out to me. Thanks for the reminder, folks.
I’m hoping that consciously explaining my situation will raise public awareness (and lessen notions of my ill-hygiene) while at the same time wedging into my subconscious a command to abscond from the memory monster in my bathroom.