Can you hoard wit?

I believe my secret TV watching (you know who you are, American Idol Season 6 and Project Runway Season 4, and you, too, made-for-SciFi-Channel-movie-about truck-sized alligators terrorizing-small-towns-in-Georgia) led to my loss of wit, irony and several brain cells. Now not only am I just plain short, I'm also short on wit, sarcasm and several other things, which I can't remember. (Note to self: add memory to list of things I'm short on. Wait, what was I going to note?) Now I'm only witty long after the fact, or in the middle of the night, when no one else is around and I'm half-asleep and too tired to remember my witty thought in the morning. If I could hoard all my witty thoughts somewhere, and just trot them out at the appropriate moment, I too could be on American Idol or perhaps the next big Fox show, American Wit.

Unfortunately, I already hoard alot of things. The extent of my hoarding was made clear when I realized I had 10 egg cups, when I live alone and rarely eat boiled eggs. (Note that I did not previously consider this to be hoarding; I had decided to keep all of my egg cups as part of my emergency planning, because when the Big Quake hits the Pacific Northwest, alot of people are going to lose their egg cups and then who'll be laughing?) At first, I thought my hoarding was a result of a chemical imbalance or a harbinger of an underlying psychological disorder. But two recent news stories have made me realize that hoarding must actually be a Pacific Northwest thing, like MS, avoiding eye contact and being mildly passive-aggressive.

The first story takes us to Rochester, WA, where a woman was found living with hundreds of healthy pet rats, 4 malnourished snakes and 1 malnourished cat. (Why were the snakes and cat malnourished when they were surrounded by rats? Don't they eat rats? Were these vegetarian snakes? Has the real story been missed here?) The second story takes us to Vancouver, WA, where a woman was found living with 42 malnourished cats. All I can say is I'm glad I don't have chickens.

Short on Wit

On the topic of wit and sarcasm, I'm a little low on both. I'm the person who laughs nervously at jokes that everyone else gets ("uh, ha, those aristocrats, aren't they a blast?"). I tried out sarcasm, but found it exhausting and alienating and I also briefly dabbled in irony. Unfortunately, irony by its nature is easy to misunderstand, which makes you look either weird or nerdy, such as wearing your former 7-eleven shirt as daytime casual wear. Which I never did, just for the record, but which I witnessed at university. Right now, I'm eating a family size package of real fruit gummies, which might be considered ironic because aside from the fact that they're about as close to real fruit as tennis balls are to apples, and excepting the fact that who's kidding who, it's not families that are eating them; it's overindulgent types like me who down them by the handful, no self-respecting parent would admit to feeding them to their children anyway. If they do, they're probably not their own children, in which case, the real fruits are the so-called families--no offense to any nutritionally-aware homosexuals intended.

Secret TV Watching

I hate the whole idea of television. I don't let my kids watch too tv because I think it is such a passive activity that really does nothing for firing any neurons. I hate that people have their "programs." Programs that they won't be out of the house on that night for. Ridiculous. And I have decided that tv has soul-sucking powers. If the tv does get turned on I have a hard time turning any show off mid-program, thus I end up watching crap that really does nothing to sway my belief that the world is going to hell-in-a-handbasket. But I think I am neurotic that way - I have to finish a book no matter how boring it might be because I have to know how it ends. I have to be the last person at a party because I am scared I might miss something.

I succumbed to my psychotic behaviour when American Idol was on one day. I have never really watched it before and I think this is around the 7th season? But the show doesn't end...So now I am stuck. I know when it airs, I know how many people are left, I know all their names, and I have my favourites. And my errant conduct must be contagious because Darc watches it with me.

We now have our "program."

Don't tell anyone.

Sitcoms

Is everyone a smartass now though? Is it a 1970's generational thing? Because I, too, am witty and sarcastic and neither of parents were particularly witty. Sometimes I sort of think it comes from TV. What if we're all actually part of a sitcom? Every so often, I think, "Wouldn't it be cool if my life was really part of a sitcom?" Except it would really be not so cool because if you weren't funny enough, then your show would get cancelled, or your character would end up with their own spin-off (which would tank after the first season because the network moved it to Saturday night after reruns of Golden Girls) or because the recurring guest star with big boobs all of a sudden made the ratings go up and she got first billing and you ended up getting sent to visit your parents in Toledo, so you're only on every third show.

One of my brothers spent a summer living at home with our mother, and sometimes to escape her (because she had an uncanny ability to drive us crazy), Owen would just hang out in the garage, sitting in an old recliner, listening to public radio and surreptitiously smoking pot and/or drinking beer. Every so often, Mom or a neighbor or a family friend or someone would just drop by to talk, kind of like on a sitcom where everyone has their front door unlocked and people just walk in, to strike up some incredibly funny conversation, or to accidentally overhear and misinterpret something. So my brothers and I pretended we were all in this sitcom called Owen's Garage. Every time, something happened, like when Owen got a job and moved back to the city, it was really the network execs tweaking the show for better ratings. A summer of hot forest fires! A tire blowing on the freeway! Buying a condo without telling his girlfriend because it meant he have to explain why he was moving out of her apartment and not taking her with him! All too funny and all designed to boost ratings. Of course, eventually, ratings must have really dropped, because at the end of the final season, his character was killed off. Ratings surged at this unexpected turn of events, but of course, once you kill a character off you can't bring them back. Unless you're a star in Dallas, which isn't a sitcom.

Smartassedness

I have got in a lot of trouble over the years for my sarcasm and general smartassedness. I don't know where it came from as my parents are not overly witty, although my father can be known to throw a barb here and there.

I have gone past the point of funny sometimes and have hurt friend's feelings so I try to be much more careful now - but I do find it difficult not to poke fun at all the idiosyncrasies of life. Life is funny, situations are funny, why be serious?

I think I am getting my own back now in the form of my sarcastic children. Who said they could talk like that? Where did they learn this rude behaviour from? Oh.

The other night at dinner we had fish. My son asked why we had to eat this? And I went on about the goodness of fish, how it is better for you than red meat, about all the omega-3 in it and so on. My son asked what omega-3s were and being the scientifically challenged person that I am told him they were good for his brain.

"Huh," he said, "well, my brain is telling me not to eat it."

Brat.

70's Party

This past weekend was Darc's birthday - and he is very old - like 8 years away from 50. We decided to celebrate with a 70's theme party. I thought this was a very open interpretation - I mean, there was hippie love, there was disco fever and someone told me that the punk rock era started at the tail end of the 70's.

Darc and I stuck to the disco theme and rented a disco ball and everything. We served very bad 70's food - devilled eggs, devilled ham with pickles on crackers, sweet and sour meatballs, bugles, cheezies, and all kinds of chips with french onion dip. We bought a zillion fudgicles but forgot to pass them out - so they will likely still be in the freezer next year on Darc's birthday.

I was surprised to see that everyone who came really embraced the theme - maybe it was because there were excellent prizes for best costumes. I mean, who doesn't need some incense and a candy necklace and a mood ring?

I think we look hot. No?

Saying no to cracks

My back also hurts - but I will not be visiting a chiropractor any time soon. We have a good friend who is a chiropractor in town and every time Murray sees me he asks when I am going to come in and get "adjusted."

I went to him last year when I could no longer stand that my head could only turn in one direction (it made it awkward to shoulder check). This was my very first time visiting a "cracker" and I hated the experience. I don't think it can really be good for your body to make those awful crunching noises. I found it more stressful than dealing with the chronic pain.

He gave me a teddy bear to hold - as if this would make it any better - than twisted my neck and said "relax." I found having my neck in someone else's hands unnerving - isn't your neck kind of important? All those vertebrae and stuff?

Murray also told me that someone farts on him every day.

I think I am discovering that it is my overwhelming fear of public flatulence that is preventing me from achieving a full and happy life.

Back again

Due to my overweening display of machismo at last week's yoga class, today I had to go to the chiropractor to have an adjustment of my fifth lumbar vertebrae, along with a bunch of other pokes and prods. I really like my chiropractor because she gives me all kinds of advice about self-care and lifting with my legs not my back, but every once in a while, she'll pass on a piece of information that sounds suspiciously like she may have read it in the Weekly World News. Like when I was pregnant, she told me about a woman in Africa who walked 90 miles, then gave birth, then walked another 10 miles and gave birth again, then finally made it to the hospital where yet a third baby was born. I assume that the moral of the story was that I should stop whining about pregnancy and do more Kegels but instead I just went home and thanked my lucky stars I live within a 10 minute walk of the hospital.

Yoga, enlightenment and inner calm

Speaking of yoga, enlightenment and inner calm, those of us in Seattle have just finished saying good-bye to the Dali Lama, the spiritual leader of camelids and Tibetan Buddhists, who arrived here last week to talk about compassion, which we apparently don't have enough of. As I headed home after work yesterday, past the stadium where the Dali Lama was getting his honorary degree, I was mulling whether we really needed more compassion or whether the world is just lacking in civility, but I didn't get a chance to think that through, because I was immediately trampled by the throngs of people exiting the stadium, who were now more compassionate, but no more polite.

Would we all be better off if we did yoga on a daily basis? Is it the suppressing of flatulence that makes people cranky and rude? And what's with the myth that only guys fart and pick their nose?

The Yoga Chronicles

Each time I go to yoga I feel a little anxiety before I get there. I always worry I won't be able to do the pose or maintain the pose and that everyone will think what is that lady doing here. I think I have not got to that higher realm where my mind, body, and spirit are one. This is a hard state to obtain when everyone warns you that you might fart - that flatulence is normal at yoga.

Um, if that happened to me then my significant other might find out that I was lying when I said "girls don't fart."

Also, I feel shy when everyone when says "ohhhmmmmmmmmmmmmm" and when the class is encouraged to let their sighs and groans out. Again, I obviously live in a much lower realm than the rest of society. Imagine my anxiety when attending a yoga class in the "big city" and everyone around me is making the correct sounds and noises.

I honestly thought that those were noises reserved for the privacy of your bedroom. Silly me.

Around and Around

My neighbours and I hold a weekly yoga class in my living room. We move the furniture into the kitchen and lie on the floor so that we can look at the dust horses underneath the dresser in the living room, which we used to store CDs, mittens, and protective gear (wrist braces, shin guards and knee pads. James also has a whole drawer just for band-aids). Tonight we did a posture called Wheel, which is called that because you're supposed to bend yourself backwards into the shape of a wheel and try to ignore the screaming muscles in your back by thinking about how much worse you would feel if you were lying on the side of the road and someone had just run over you with the wheel of their car. And then you're supposed to feel gratitude and thanks that you're able bodied and capable of inflicting pain on yourself instead of someone else doing it for you. This is what four weeks of yoga has taught me so far, which means I should be turning into a yogi any day now. I can't wait til we get to the flying part.