If you had stopped me at any point this week and said, “Hey, how’s your week going?”, I would have said something like, “Ok”, or, “Not bad”.
In all fairness, both answers are accurate, but I think I tend to give those kind of answers off the cuff without putting a whole lot of thought into it. Unless something really major has happened (and frankly, that’s rare), I’m likely to kind of gloss over the daily routine of my life.
Now though, as I sit here and look back at the week, it occurs to me that inspite of the ho-hum, boring, “business as usual” nature of it, this was a pretty good week, and I realize that I did actually learn a few things.
Here are some of them, in no particular order of importance:
There is no practical limit to the number of times you can walk past a birthday present, look at it, and still forget to mail it.
Elton John can still write really great music. No, seriously. Check out “Songs from the West Coast”.
When giving someone a ride home at 5am, it’s not necessarily safe to assume that they know where they live. Be prepared to take the long way.
A drag queen on a lawn tractor can change a whole parade, and make you laugh so hard you cry.
50 lbs of crushed brick is no match for a 10 year old husky who is determined to lay in the cool dirt in the shade of your shrubs.
An unexpected hug and a kind word can change your whole night.
Sometimes, other people will feel that it’s appropriate to give you a business card that has pictures of them on it, half naked.
If this happens to you in a restaurant, you can use toothpicks to make scary little half-naked puppets out of it.
Sometimes I put too much information in my columns.
You can find yourself regretting a missed opportunity, even though you found out about it long after the opportunity was gone. It’s a “spilt milk” thing; You have to just let it go.
My parents just get more and more cool as time goes by. Kind of like the song.
Billie Holiday has fans far too young to remember her when she was alive. That’s what it means to be timeless.
If you put a banana in your backpack, remember to take it out again. Especially if you put in last week.
There are people out there who would have you believe that noted architect Frank Lloyd Wright invented the urinal. This is not true. (It was actually introduced during the rule of Emperor Vespasian in ancient Rome. It scares me that I know that).
A Black German Shepherd is so uncommon that people will insist that it is part black lab, even though you own the dog and assure them it’s not. Why would you lie about something like that?
The belief in karma, and that someone will pay (or get paid) for their actions is very comforting, regardless of whether it’s true or not.
You never outgrow pop-up books.
You don’t necessarily need to have a single and important, well thought-out, controversial topic in order to write a column for intrepid media [grin].
So, those were a few of the little observations I almost didn’t make last week. I’m glad I took a moment to look back, but it kind of makes me wonder what I’ve missed in weeks gone by. How about you? Time to discuss. Let’s hear about your week….
Hey mister, is that a banana in your backpack or….
Very interesting observations, Roger. I especially like the pop-up book philosophy.
What song?
As Time Goes By, genius.
The song gets more and more cool, or there’s a line in the song about parents? This is what’s confusing me at 10:45 on a Monday morning. Honestly, I think a more illustrative song would have been “Surrender” by Cheap Trick.
Hmmm…ok, Adam, just what are you suggesting my parents surrender to? Or are you saying they already have surrendered?
Mondays are so confusing…
See what happens when the discussion isn’t about movies? All heck breaks loose.
I was just wondering whether the word “scary” in “scary little half-naked puppets” is redundant.
No; I think it’s possible to have comforting little half-naked puppets, too. Think Sesame Street.
Aren’t most of the Sesame Street puppets completely, not half-, naked? Except Bert and Ernie, who are fully clothed (except in tub scenes with Ernie’s rubber ducky.)
Then, ironically, naked puppets would be more comforting than half-naked puppets.
(I’m not going to split the puppet vs. muppet hair, either.)
(I feel slightly filthy even bringing any of this up, now.)
Frank Lloyd Wright did invent the upright urinal. He also invented white-out and played guitar for the Monkees.
I didn’t know that anyone played guitar for The Monkees. Or played any instruments, for that matter…
Ernie’s alright, Bert is alright, they just got a little bit ba-a-are…
As long as I’m nitpicking, the “spilt milk” thing isn’t something you “let go.” You just don’t cry over it. There’s nothing in that saying about “leaving it where it is,” or “not cleaning it up.” Learn from your missed opportunity; don’t miss the next one that comes along. Clean up your milk.
Mike – you’re a weird guy. And I’ll have you know that Mike Nesmith of the Monkees was, in fact, both a musician and songwriter. He wrote the song “Different Drum,” popularized by the Stone Poneys.
“Regretting a missed opportunity” sounds like it could be equivalent to “crying,” so I think Roger’s spilt milk point stands.
Split milk, though, that would be something.
Split milk and spilt pea soup. Sounds like we have the first special on the official IntrepidMedia menu.
Maybe if you leave the milk in your backpack as long as that banana, then you could split it.
Last week here’s what I learned: When feeding fish from your hand, the little unassuming ones bite just has hard as the big ugly ones.
I really don’t want to get into the whole puppet/muppet clothing issue, mostly because I like the muppets and well, the whole idea of “Tickle Me” Elmo gets kind of perverse when think about the fact that he’s naked.
I guess the scariness was a combination of the fact that they actually had the cards printed, and the way they looked. From my experience, some people look rather nice half naked, but this doesnt justify putting it on your busness card.
Matt – remind me to tell you sometime about how we used to trick people into getting bit my my Lionfish. (don’t worry, they have no teeth).
No, he didn’t bite me, he stung me. Yeah, I didn’t learn it last week but a while ago I learned that you cannot catch a large lionfish in a plastic baggie no matter how sick he looks lying on the bottom of the tank! I also learned that maybe he needed to get some of that poison out of his own body because after he stung me, he made an amazing recovery. Very suspicious.
And this week I learned that a good friend of mine makes scary little half-naked toothpick puppets from strangers’ business cards…
No, I meant the innocent students. You knew what you were getting into with your amateur Fish EMS service (but I appreciate it!)
Ok, the puppets were Michael’s idea…
Why do I suddenly feel like I’m eavesdropping on a conversation I shouldn’t be hearing?
Adam, by definition, you shouldn’t be hearing any conversation you’re eavesdropping on, right?
Roger, side story: Once while out for after work drinks, I had a co-worker show me (and about 15 other people) naked photos of herself. The scariest part? She carried them in her wallet and said they were taken by her brother.
Yikes.
Here’s what I’m dying to know, Roger — what kind of business was the person in? Because there are business in which half-nakedness is a bare (ha!) minimum. Then there are others in which it’s just wrong, wrong, wrong.
Matt – that’s just wrong on so many levels. Ewww…
Jael – There was no business associated with these cards, just name, e-mail address and half-naked picture. It was the picture-book version of a bar napkin. As I told Matt – Ewww…
And Adam – I don’t really have anything to say, but I want you to feel included. Oh wait, yes I do…
Jael is right, if you’re hearing the voices again, it’s time to make another appointment with the doc.
If anyone is interested… I happen to have naked pictures of Roger that I have had made into business cards. They come complete with toothpicks and perforated edges to get him into those really hard to figure out positions!
Okay, that does it. I think we all know what everyone’s thinking, but is too scared to say: The IntrepidMedia business cards need to have half-naked pictures of the entire staff. It all becomes clear to me.
Hey, those aren’t pictures of me! Someone pasted my face on another body (probably Joe’s)…
There are already half-naked pictures of a lot of the staff on this site – on the about page – and I won’t even mention the picture of Tracey kissing a marine mammal (oops!)
Geez, what’s a site got to do to get people to join??
Virgin sacrifice.
Half-naked staff pictures? Which half?
Ohhhh, yeah. The AbMaster.
It starts with the very provocative shot of Jael’s sexy right shoulder and back, but there are pics of Jack, Miller and myself all showing some skin. Now where’d I put those toothpicks…?
Hey, Flipper kissed me, okay? I was just being polite. And I was only naked from the thighs down.
I think I read somewhere that dolphins are the only other animals in the world that have sex for fun.