Yes, yes - another Paul Simon quote.  It's possible that there's a Paul Simon quote for every occasion, thought, and mood - I really can't say, I've never met the man.  I just happen to be in a rut.  It's a pleasant change of pace from going down the tubes all the time.  Even when that rut (i.e., Paul Simon quotes) serves mainly to mark the occasion, thought, and mood of going down the tubes....
     Yes, yes - I'm rambling.  As Flaubert once said in his own online journal, "Please forgive the length of this entry - I simply didn't have time to write a shorter one."
     The fact is, I'm rattled.  And it's all because of something I read on the morning of Wednesday, August 4, 1999.  I thought if I waited 55 days to write about it, I wouldn't still be rattled, but I am.  Next time I read the thing, I must make a note to wait at least 56 days before noting the fact here.
     As read things go, it wasn't much, really.  Just 62 characters packed into 14 words forming a single sentence.  And yet what a difference reading them has made!  Is it possible for such a short sentence to be so mentally carcinogenic that even a brief, one-time exposure to it can turn a passing little thought into an ugly, swelling mass of rapidly  multiplying fears?
     In hopes of finding out, and to give any guinea pigs reading this a chance to break out of whatever testing rut they may happen to be in, I'm now going to inject that sentence here.
     Just give me a sec to don my lead apron.
     OK - here it is:

     Oh, pregnant women should shield their eyes.  Ready, ladies?  OK, here we go:

     OK, ladies - you can look again.
     Yes, yes - I know.  As sentences go, this one doesn't seem all that bad at first glance - especially if you happen to be a pregnant woman who is contemplating having a good percentage of the atoms in her body forced through a tiny hole in her body over the course of a relatively few minutes. 
     BUT!
     If you think about it just a bit, I think you'll begin to see it metastasizing into something rather horrible.
     Consider:
     If 98 per cent of the atoms in our bodies are leaving us every year, it behooves us to ask: What do they know that we don't??  Was it something we said?  Are we not keeping our property up to code?  WHAT?!
     If 98 per cent of the atoms in our bodies are leaving us every year, what does this say about the 2 per cent left behind?  Are they the stupid ones?  The ones that sleep through anything?  The ones that self-respecting atoms refuse to associate with?  Do they suffer from vague feelings of separation anxiety and/or a constant sense of loss?  Is that why I do all the time?? 
     If 98 per cent of the atoms in our bodies are leaving us every year, where are they going?  Exactly how many are leaving us because they got a better offer from a garden slug??  And as much as I believe in the brotherhood of man and all, the thought of opening my door and stepping out into a world in which 98 per cent of your used atoms are out there swirling around and blowing in my face leaves me queasy.  How am I supposed to keep from bellowing "Where are their parents?!" the next time a gust full of atomic grit hits me in the face?!  Why aren't the leash laws vigorously enforced here?!  No offense, but I'd rather be licked by your dog than smacked in the eye by atoms that were once part of some areas of your body I could mention.  And judging from the girls I used to date, a lot of people must feel the same way about me.
     If 98 per cent of the atoms in our bodies are leaving us every year, what does it mean to be us?  Who am I really?  Am I basically a new person every 12 months who's simply deluded when he thinks he's been around for 40 years or is the essential me so small and insignificant that it can be packed into a mere 2 per cent of my mass?  If I can be so utterly deluded about myself as to think I've existed for 40 years when I'm actually a mere 1-year-old, what may I not be deluded about?  If, on the other hand, my essence can fit in a mere 2 per cent of my mass, why should I continue to haul my 150 pound carcass around with me everywhere I go?  Why can't I save my whole carcass for formal occasions like sex and death and just get by with hauling around my essential 3 pounds on a moment-to-moment basis?  Hell, most days I bet I could just phone myself in....
     If 98 per cent of the atoms in our bodies are leaving us every year, what can it possibly mean to be married to someone?  The woman I married is long gone!  Sure, her form remains, but does that mean that I'm actually married not only to her but to everyone who happens to look like her?  Are we all destined to be bigamists whether we like it or not?!
     How can any of us be held to any sort of contract at all when a year from now 98 per cent of us and whoever we made the contract with will be gone?
     And what does this mean for our criminal justice system?  It seems that even if we catch and convict a felon, he or she will inevitably slip through our fingers within a mere 365 days.  No matter how horrible the crime.  No matter how thick the prison walls or how sharp the barbed wire atop the fences.  Do our legislators realize this?  If not, why not?  If so, why haven't I heard any of them advocate the building of superduper maximum security prisons from which not even the smallest atoms can escape on the merest current of air?!
     It's all enough to make my head swim!  Maybe I better go toss a few more alligators in the moat around my house before it escapes entirely?!?!
     And then there's THIS:
     If 98 per cent of the atoms in my body are leaving me every year, how did the writer of the sentence which told me this know it?!  Did he or she see them leaving my body?  Have I been under constant observation the last 12 months exactly as I suspected - but at a level far more intimate than I ever imagined?!  Exactly who is this person who has been taking such a complete census of my body's trillions and trillions of atoms when thousands of people at the U.S. Census Bureau have such trouble keeping track of a few hundred million, body-sized creatures once every ten years?!
     Which just brings to mind this disturbing fact: There are doctors right now in Thailand - doctors who have never, ever even seen me - who know more about my body and its workings than I do even after having lived with it almost every single moment of my life!!!

     Oh, it's all so very, very disturbing.  I think I need to go lie down until the feeling passes.  Or at least until the atoms that make up this feeling passes.
     Maybe if I lie down in front of a fan, it'll speed things up.
     If only there was a setting higher than "High"!
 

Ahhhh - much better!  Thanks, Johanna!  Nothing like a good frog joke to help one forget the basic horror of being alive.  :-)