Sat., Nov. 6, 1999
"Intellect is invisible to the man who has none."
- Arthur Schopenhauer in a late night prank phone call to Friedrich Nietzsche
"Whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger."
- Friedrich Nietzsche to Arthur Schopenhauer after "accidentally" backing
his pick-up truck over Schopenhauer's foot.
Am having something of a bad day here.
First I spent an hour trying to wash the sunlight off my wife's car.
Then I spent an hour trying to rinse the water from my hands.
Desperate to succeed at something before lunch, I rushed to nail today's entry to this site without taking the time to don safety goggles.
The very first blow of the hammer shattered a paragraph.
Shards of notions went flying everywhere.
Six ended up dangerously close to my collection of Baja Marimba Band LPs.
Three turned my copy of the Myst isle into just another cheesy tourist trap.
One embedded itself in my left eye.If only my hands hadn't been quite so wet....
If only they made hammers a bit softer....
It wasn't a very big notion, as notions go, but it was sharp and thus annoying all the same - especially when I tried to blink.
If only I wasn't so addicted to blinking.
If only blinking wasn't one of my chief pleasures in life....
Anyway, it took the doctor forever to get a good grip on it and yank it out.
If only he hadn't been quite so busy trying to impress Hot4u69 in a Yahoo chat room as he worked the remote-controlled little crane....Staring at the notion as it lay there, small and naked in the emergency room's one sterilized ashtray, I found it hard to believe that such a little, mouthless thing could cause so much pain when thrust deep into an eye.
It was nothing more than a simple notion - a mere wisp of an idea - and probably a high school essay drop-out:Why don't they have sob tracks on TV dramas and newscasts to set the mood? Why don't the producers of these shows let me know when it's time for me to cry?
Such a silly little thing, brittle with age, and no thicker than a whim.
And yet it managed to selfishly dilate my pupil and crack my favorite vision.
And almost convince me that the producers of TV dramas and newscasts don't really love me as much as they should.
Well, I'm just glad it wasn't any worse than it was.
I'm just glad it was this notion that chose to lodge in my poor eye and not, say, a "Diff'rent Strokes Thanksgiving Reunion Show"....Then the mail came.
A package from The Judicial System.
"This is just to inform you that an anonymous 3-judge panel in Cincinnati is on the verge of concluding that your mind is guilty of operating and maintaining an ILLEGAL and PHILOSOPHICALLY UNACCEPTABLE monopoly in your head. Unless you take IMMEDIATE steps to open that head up to other voices and personalities, action will be taken to break it up. Because, you know, competition between completely independent entities is as good for the brain as it is for the economy. Sincerely yours, THE THIRD DISTRICT COURT."
In a separate envelope, there was a letter - also from The Judicial System:
"P.S. - Don't even think about appealing this decision by claiming that your imaginary friends, Hans and Sylvia, make for an open mental marketplace. They are wholly-owned subsidiaries of your own madness. We checked their birth certificates. Nice try, though."
Finally, a postcard:
"Don't settle for poor, second-rate decisions any longer! For the best in learned renderings, findings, judgments and decisions of every shape and size, try the Icelandic Court System TODAY!"
It was enough my make my head spin despite the restraining orders I'd slapped my scalp with just last week.
And then I had to laugh.
Slip my one and only mind inside a small, foreign court system?
I don't think so.
I bet they don't even have witness chair airbags....It's all much too much too much too much.
I need to go lie down.
I need to escape into sleep... into dreams....Or maybe I need to go lay down.
And escape into slumbers and reverie....If only I could think straight with a patch over one eye and hands that remain wet as a sun-drenched car.
If only I wasn't having the worst day I've had since watching "This Old House" episodes out of ordering and then trying to put up the studs for a journal addition after having already installed the damn drywall....
(©1999 by Dan Birtcher just to have something to do with his chapped fingers
while both Hans and Sylvia are out of town)
