Fang You Very Much

Vampires never see daylight. There are two ways you can jump at that. The first, most logical, reaction is to point out that vampires don’t exist. I expect most of you to fall in that camp. The rest of you are thinking about the immortality, mesmerizing charm and nifty wardrobe. Those of you who know me in real life may be adding snarky thoughts about my taste in fiction.

The vampire thing is a point of reference, someone who lives their whole life (or undead existence, never mind, you get the point) without ever experiencing something that’s basic to the rest of the community. It's also a metaphor, because we all do that.

The similarity just occurred to me. My life moves in the same circle, gym and keyboard and whatnot. Most of you could say the same kind of thing about your own lives. Limitation is a byproduct of adulthood. We get caught up in what we do and forget about the rest of the world. Cyclic repetition isn't bad or wrong in itself. Happiness is being content, whether it’s with what you have or with what you’re doing. I’ve often said that if I want a change, I’ll plod counterclockwise around the post. So far clockwise suits me just fine. Knock on wood.

The trick is to remember that the world is always much bigger than our own little piece of it. Which brings us back to the vampire metaphor. Even they know what SPF is, or they would if they existed.

Postponing Procrastination

For the most part, at least as far as tasks are concerned, priorities come in two types. Call them what you will; good and bad, carrot and stick, cake and whatever kind of veggies you don’t like. You get the idea. Both are priorities. We need to resolve our obligations and responsibilities, and we need to have fun and be happy. The duality is a given. How we handle it says a lot about who we are.

Do you do the nasty stuff first and then the cool stuff? For the most part, that’s what I do. It sounds so hardworking and puritanically proletarian, but I think it just guarantees that the work gets done at all. Eat dessert first and you won’t have room for the nutrition. I linger longer over the fun stuff, and time can be an issue.

For all that, I stopped the jokes at #12 (okay, I didn’t stop them, they just stopped) and once I hit the “publish post” button on this, my nose goes right back to the grindstone. Today’s word is “Ventriloquist”. You’re very lucky this post isn’t twenty pages long. I don’t want to go back there. Some people find clowns creepy. I find ventriloquism creepy, hence the uncharacteristic procrastination. But I’ve come to the end of the carrot, and it’s time again for the stick. Or at least, time to face my antipathy and throw a metaphoric cream pie at it.

Ho Hum Ha

Writing 20 jokes a day is a bit of a bitch, in case you were wondering. I thought I'd give you a view from the trenches. We'll ignore the first two days’ topics, “side show” and “fire truck”, and you've already seen one from "cipher", so let's skip “ratio” and go straight to “bamboozled”:

16. “Dude, your wife totally bamboozled you. Vacuuming isn’t an ancient Mayan relaxation technique.”

Give “co-habitant" a miss, and we’re on to “birthday suit”:

12. Two little old ladies were having afternoon tea in the Home. One said to the other, “That loud party at the frat house next door sure ended suddenly last night. It was quite a relief.” “I know, I ended it,” said the other. “How on earth did you do that?” asked the first one. “I went over there in my birthday suit and shouted LIMBO!”

The next one was more fun than it should have been. The word was “scar”:

13. Elsie the cow and Bossie the cow watched the barbecue. “Poor Connie. That’s gonna leave a scar.”
17. The young mortician stared at the strange scars on the corpse’s back. “What on earth caused that?” The older mortician took one glance and chuckled. “Oh, you’ll see a lot of those in your career. The guy was pussy-whipped to death.”

Then there was “history exam”. The first one was the best:

1. Satan grabbed Willy Wonka by the scraggly blond hair and yanked his head back hard. “Look at it,” Satan hissed. Satan shoved a photo of bleeding gums oozing vitreous pus in Willy Wonka’s face. “Who is it?” demanded Satan. “Belinda Farquhar?” offered Wonka. There was a zap and Willy Wonka screamed. “No,” said Satan. “David Fendleberg?” “No.” Zap. Scream. “Caitlin O’Herlihy?” “No.” Zap. Scream. One imp was showing another imp through that part of Hell, and the new imp asked what was going on. The first imp explained, “Dental history exam.”

Today was “pen pal”. I’ll spare you. Remember, I’ve done 20 jokes on each topic. These aren’t necessarily the best, but they’re my favorites. Thanks for your patience.

The Why Chromosome

The other morning I decided to prune the shrubbery in front of our house. It should’ve been done ages ago; the walk was almost completely overgrown. Out came my little pruning shears and I set to work. I was about three-quarters done when I noticed that I’d worn some skin off of my hands in a couple of spots. What the hell, I was pruning rosemary, which is a natural antiseptic. I kept going til I was done.

Compulsive or macho? Robert said it was macho. That’s what started me thinking. The ability to withstand discomfort or even pain for a goal isn’t particularly manly. Ask any mother. (I’m not one, but the point holds.) A high pain threshold isn’t any more gender specific than my loathing of peachy-beige band-aids. I go to great effort to have interesting band-aids when I need them, but that’s not particularly feminine. The current one is black with white pirate skulls. Adorable, yes, but girly? Not when I was a lass.

Marketing people will tell you that there is such a thing as gender-oriented behavior. Cultural anthropologists might agree. I’m not so sure anymore. Maybe that’s because I spend so much time in the gym with non-stereotypical women and know quite a few non-stereotypical men. Hell, I married one.

Oh never mind. I’m tired of the pirate band-aid. It’s time to change it to something pretty.

Summer Reruns

I’m doing it again. I know better, but I’m doing the jokes-a-day anyhow.

Is there anyone here who hasn’t been through this with me before? I’ll recap as quickly as I can: pick a random topic and write twenty jokes about it. Repeat daily until your brain explodes or your friends stop speaking to you.

I may have found a way around that second hazard. Unlike the last two times (velociraptors, anyone?), I won’t be groveling for suggestions. Robert has a random word generator app on his phone. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the word it generated this morning was “cyphers”. My word processor just tried to correct that spelling. Cipher is better than the topic he gave me yesterday, which was “fire truck”. I got to fifteen on that. The day before was “side show”.

Let me tell you this. Just as there are stages of grief and stages of drunkenness, there are stages of joke writing. I know I’m in trouble when I see these words on my monitor: “A priest, a rabbi and a (word of the day) go into a bar”…

10. A priest, a rabbi and a cipher walked into a bar. The bartender said, “What’ll it be, boys?” The priest asked for a beer. The rabbi had wine. The cipher said, “You figure it out.”

These are the jokes, folks. I’ve still got eight more to do.

Let's Get Physics-al

We call them the Laws of Physics. By definition, laws can be broken. What does that say about physics? Levitation might count as a misdemeanor, but rolling uphill would just be a cardiovascular workout. Try it and let me know.

Speaking of gravity, I was having a perfectly ordinary evening until a rapid series of conversational topics reminded me of past failures and epic personal inadequacies. Down, down, down I fell. Forget the apple landing on Newton’s head. A psyche is like a Ming vase filled with sand. It falls fast, shatters easily and makes a hell of a mess.

Holy tangled metaphors, Batman! Weren’t we talking about the immutability of physical law?

To pretend I’m still in control here, I’ll grasp and say that the laws of physics apply not only to physical objects but also nonphysical ones. A bad mood has inertia. A good one has momentum. (Science geeks, feel free to comment on my choice of verbs. Hell, grammar geeks can too. Let’s have a party.) Activities have momentum. Haven’t you ever started tidying up and found yourself sterilizing the furniture? Extreme example, but you get my point.

The next time you’re in a class or a meeting, listening to someone drone on and on, watch their mouth open and close and think about violating the law that says an object in motion stays in motion. Remember that old saying, “Rules are made to be broken.”

Persnickety Lemons

Can you hear that tired old trope, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade” without rolling your eyes? The lemonade stand had gone the way of the dodo even when I was a child, but lemons were still apocryphally potent. Per the Brady Bunch, the juice was alleged to erase freckles. In the 70s, we used it to highlight our hair while we baked precancerously in the sun. It didn’t work, but that never stopped us from trying.

Lemons have a unique place in popular culture. They’re in everything from furniture polish to gelato. “Lemon yellow” is superior to the more pedestrian and bourgeois “yellow.” Oh, and if you’re trying to cut down on sodium, someone will tell you to substitute lemon juice for salt. They always do. People seem to think that acidity and salinity are the same thing.

Have you read any of the stuff about those ubiquitous lemon slices in restaurants? Apparently many restaurants don’t wash them enough, thus when sliced, the bacteria on the surface go into the juicy parts. According to this theory, squeezing that wedge into your refreshing beverage adds all sorts of microbial extras. I’m not sure I believe it, but what’s a blog for if not to propagate urban myths?

Be that as it may, I like lemons. They taste good. They’re a nice, friendly color. Lemons are extremely useful little things. They may not remove freckles or give you blonde hair, but if you want to know if you’ve got any nicks or cuts on your hands, squeeze a lemon. You should always have one handy, if only for that purpose.