Tuesday, January 30, 2007

A Few Quick Hits

Just a few quick points, and then I'm going to bed.

  1. I've been giving it a lot of thought lately, well, as much thought as I am capable of, and it is my firm opinion that people innately have six senses. Yes, six. Of course we have the five we're taught: sight, smell, touch, taste, hear. Some people would say that the "sixth sense" would be psychic... stuff. I call those people nuts. The sixth sense I'm referring to is time. I believe that people have a sense of time, but it has to be refined and worked at. It's probably the laziest of our six senses. It's the one that people can ignore easiest, and the one that actually requires work to make it stronger, more accurate, but I believe it's there.

    I woke up at 6:30 last Wednesday. My alarm wasn't set to go off until 8, but I am supposed to wake up at 6:30 on school days. I woke up and wondered, "do I have school today?" and thought for a moment before I decided I didn't. But I woke up at the time that I thought I had to. I routinely wake up moments, sometimes seconds, before my alarm goes off. Something inside knows. I know we have this internal clock, but what else can it be but a sense of time? Everyone has this experience and others similar to it.

    Throughout my day I routinely, and fairly accurately, often to within 10 minutes, feel how much time has passed. This idea isn't exactly being presented eloquently, but I feel we have a sense of time because it's more nebulous than an "internal clock," as if we truly had internal clocks, there wouldn't be room for error as there are with senses. Things feel rough and hard, but they don't feel "rock" or "wood." It may smell like almonds, but turns out it's gangrene. It feels like it's 1:30, but turns out it's about 1:10.

    Time is also something unquantifiable by our other senses. In the same way we can't smell colors or taste textures (unless your a synasthetic... lucky bastard) you can't feel time, hear it, smell it, see it or taste it, but it's something that we're definitely aware of and can track, internally.

    Whew. Spent way too much time on that.

  2. I find it difficult, sometimes, being a man when I despise certain aspects of the language of men. In this particular instance I'm referring to such things as "she's a hottie." Few things make me want to plant a rolled up hand of five into some guys teeth than the words hot and hottie. I'm not entirely certain what it is about them that drives me nuts. Naughty is also up there on that list, as a sidenote. I'm not entirely certain what it is about this vernacular that drives me nuts. In fact, for many years (all of highschool and everything before that), I wouldn't even comment on a girl's beauty because of it. I don't have a problem with appreciating beauty in whatever form it may take, but something about those words is nails on a chalkboard to me. Perhaps it's because those words represent a type of shallowness that I find equally repulsive. Perhaps it's labeling that I don't like (though that's unlikely. I label everything. Even labels). But whatever it is, it turns my stomach sour. Pretty, cute, adorable, beautiful; these are words I can live with, associate with, appreciate. Hot and hottie? Um, I'm not even sure what a Webster's definition of hottie would be, and hot is usually something that has to do with temperature. Whatever. This will probably be something that will slightly increase my blood pressure every time I hear it until the end of my days.

    This isn't to say that girls are off the hook. I hear the same nonsense coming from the very mouths of girls who complain about this ridiculosity. "I wish guys would grow up. I'm not a piece of meat... that guy is so yummy." That's one that I hear from girls that makes me feel a little sickish. Yummy? Isn't that a word we use to describe the quality of something that we devour? With our mouths? Something that will get utterly annihilated and destroyed by stomach acids? Is that what you want to do? Annihilate this guy with acid? I don't get it. Again, something that will cause me to anyuerism on my bathroom floor when I'm 30. Or have a seizure. With my brain.

  3. I'm certain there was a third. And just so you know, the italics would not come off for the first part of that last sentence. I should know. I retyped it about 9 times. So, I'm certain there was a third thing I wanted to talk about, but these are the kind of things that happen when you're Cuyler. You forget stuff... a lot. Well, goodnight.