Sat., April 7, 42 A.B.: The World Turned Upside Right!
I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin deep. That's deep enough. What do you want - an adorable pancreas? - Jean Kerr
Today has been a fabulous day! A wonderful day! A truly terrific day! And believe it or not, discovering the above quote in Dr. Harold L. Klawans' book, Newton's Madness: Further Tales of Clinical Neurology (New York: Harper & Row, 1990; p. 98) was merely the start!
Ahh, but what a start! In a flash, I realized how silly I've been for the last 30-odd years, virtually sleepwalking through life as inside I've been secretly consumed with worry over the ugliness of my guts. I long ago banished my childish concerns that emergency rescue workers would someday find my injured body clothed in less-than-stellar undergarments - after all, banishing such concerns proved to be merely a matter of remembering to change those undergarments every hour on the hour. But what of the less-than-stellar lymph within? What of the iron poor blood, the cloudy mucus, the half-digested Ho Ho's from the summer of '79? What could I do about any of those? And yet, unless I did something, I ran the risk of being mocked by EMS crews, ER nurses, and who knows how many physicians who have seen the superior innards of countless Beautiful People. Better, I concluded, to crawl off and die alone at the first sign of a contusion, laceration, or concussion than to have the Inner Me gazed upon by expert eyes and found wanting (or even snicker worthy!).
At long last, the simple but breathtakingly true words of Jean Kerr have liberated me. The fact is, it IS enough to be beautiful on the outside only! The fact is, superficial cuteness DOES count for an awful lot in this world of ours! So I don't have an adorable pancreas - so what?! Maybe I have a swank appendix or an irresistibly perky gallbladder! Then again, maybe I don't have anything but a sweet button nose and calves to die for - that's OK! And thank YOU, Jean, for reminding me of these simple facts and making my day!
My year!
THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME THE WILL TO GO ON LIVING IN A WORLD OF SPEEDING TRUCK AND SHARP OBJECTS!!!
Bottom line: Jean Kerr made me a happy man this morning. :-)
And then - impossible as it seems - the March 25 issue of Newsweek actually made me even happier. How? By stating - right there on page 62 for all the world to see - that my body harbors some 400 species of "probiotics."
WOOOO-HOOOOOO!!!
What are probiotics? "Friendly bacteria," that's what. Friendly bacteria! As in, "They like me - they really like me!"
And with 400 friends like that, who cares if a few EMS workers or ER nurses someday happen to opine that my colon isn't worth the air it would take to distend it? Those workers and nurses can say whatever they want - the fact remains that dozens if not hundreds of others have actually chosen to live in that colon regardless of what they may think!
(OK, so the same Newsweek article does go on to berate Americans like me for eating fewer fermented diary products than the residents of any other developed country. My friends obviously love me for more than my ability to pass along hi-octane nutrition to them, otherwise they'd have long ago moved to India or Indonesia, wouldn't they? So, if you happen to be the reporter who made that snide comment about my diet: Shush!)
The kicker of all kickers came late this afternoon, however. That's when I got a call from the County Parks Department. Seems one of their workers was surfing the web in search of porn sites and accidentally came to this very journal thanks to my "Nude Names" section. Anyway, one thing led to another, and the guy actually ended up reading some of my entries, and his supervisor caught him, and the supervisor called in her boss, and... well....
Shortly before 5 p.m., I got a call from the County Parks Czar himself. Seems he wants to take as many entries of mine as he can get and dump them into a local quarry so that divers have something to explore this summer now that the EPA has made them remove all the old cars they used to dump in!
Can you believe it?!
We still have to work out a few details, of course, such as what famous author's name we need to attach to my stuff to give it enough substantiality to sink, and who's going to be liable if anyone gets hung up on one of my impenetrable metaphors and drowns, and whether or not I'm going to be paid in mulch or free rides on the hood of the riding mowers, but -
What a day! What a day!! WHAT A DAY!!!!!
If there's no entry tomorrow, it's either because I've floated up to the ceiling of my office and can't get down or over-eager men in green have caught wind of, seized, and dumped my latest ideas into the deep before I've even had a chance to develop 'em.
I can only hope against hope that YOUR weekend is going as doggone swell!
(©In Triplicate using water-proof bacterial secretions by a DJ Birtcher
suddenly in love with all things governmental and parasitic)
The road is long
with many a winding turn
that leads us to who knows where,
who know where.
But I'm strong,
strong enough to carry him.
He ain't heavy, he's my probiotic.
So on we go.His welfare is of my concern.
No burden is he to bear,
we'll get there.
For I know
he would not encumber me.
He ain't heavy, he's my probiotic.If I'm laden at all,
I'm laden with sadness
that everyone's heart
isn't filled with the gladness
of love for one another.It's a long, long road
from which there is no return.
While we're on the way to there,
why not share?
And the load
doesn't weigh me down at all.
He ain't heavy, he's my probiotic.He's my probiotic.
He ain't heavy, he's my probiotic...