Passionate ambivalence

Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.

~T.S. Eliot, from Ash Wednesday

Statusitis

Statusitis
The inability to stop yourself from thinking about what you’re doing in the third person and wondering if it’s interesting enough to post on Facebook.

E.g.  As Josh picked a large ball of lint from his belly button, he thought to himself, “Josh is picking a large ball of lint from his belly button.”

someecards are cool

Highly recommend this site for eCards for all occasions (“when you care enough to hit send.”)  Be warned, however, that many of their cards are very R-rated.

Don’t do me any favors

As you may recall, I have a bit of an issue with the phrase “do me a solid” when used to mean “do me a favor” rather than “Sweetie, please take a dump now, for Mommy.”  (Oddly, it’s also the most popular post on this blog, hands down.)

This morning, it got worse.  Bill Simmons, a funny ESPN sportswriter and Boston fan, writes that he wants to “throw a solid to Andrew in Seattle.”  Is it me, or does this conjure up the image of those monkeys that toss their feces at each other?

(If they can can stand the smell of it.)

One Craft

Amidst the liquid stillness deep below,
It calculates and dictates the detail,
To set the course precise by compass nail;
The rudder of the ship predicts the flow.

But sensing now the possible of fail,
A crack of wind, a rise of vagrant swell,
The falling air, the clang of ocean bell,
The rudder feels the speed and sees the sail

Arching wide to elevate the shell
And lift it to the chaos storm of sky,
Aching with a desperate need to fly,
To yank the steady rudder from its well.

The rudder shakes and trembles at the speed
As the sail exalts the miracle she’s freed.

10

Perfection is an opinion.

Artists among us

The heretofore unknown (to me), original artwork of Charlie McDanger.

The peak of laughter

A study of laughter back in 1996 confirmed that laughter reduces stress, increases bloodflow and has a number of other salubrious effects on mind and body.  It also found that a child tends to first laugh at 2-3 months of age, and thereafter laughs more and more until reaching, at age 6, a peak of nearly 300 laughs per day!

At this point, apparently, laughter gets the Telegram, and the average number of laughs per day begins its decline.  The study posits social norms and a desire to fit in as the causes.  This will surprise no one, I’m sure.  Many days, I’m happy if I get in one or two.

Which is particularly sad when one considers that laughter is one of the two ancient secrets to long life and inner peace (the other, of course, being hot tubs.)

Getting the Telegram

Getting the Telegram
Achieving the pinnacle of one’s life.

Derived from the former practice of sending someone a telegram to commemorate an achievement.

Carl glowed with pride at being the life of the After Prom, but was secretly fearful that he may have just gotten the Telegram after using a lighter to shoot a burst of flame from his butt.

Infrastructure public works?

Pavement drawings by Julian Beever