Meanderings 58

sooooooooo happy.......my old roommate JR's grandparents.....
I'm sure my mom used to have me wear stuff like this.....


Just a few thoughts this evening. Also, "58" was my football jersey number in high school. I was hydration coordinator.

1. The English language is really funny, because different words have totally taken on different connotations (cultural meanings). George Carlin often points out (or pointed out) these funny things, such as "give my best to Scott" and the differences between "soon" and "a little while" when talking about time: Both mean relatively the same thing....yet "soon" has so much more of an ominous feeling than "a little while." If I were being executed, I would rather be shot "in a little while" than "soon."

But I got to thinking of how this works in my teaching career--particularly in the way I talk to groups of people. Consider the words "folks" and "people." Both, essentially, refer to humans en masse, yet they both have a certain "feel" to each one. When I say "okay FOLKS, let's listen up" my tone is automatically (it seems) laid back, lighthearted, and full of levity. But when FOLKS become PEOPLE, all hell seems to break loose, and suddenly the people who were folks are suddenly people...and people is a much more serious thing to be: "Listen PEOPLE, you need to pay attention to chapter 43 of Monte Cristo, because there will be a test." I guess you need to really hear it spoken, but do you know what I mean? PEOPLE is just so much more serious sounding...and so much more impersonal.

Finally, if I need to address, let's say, two human bodies in my class at one time, my tone can also be full of what my communication professors used to call "metamessages." The phrases in question involve "you two" and "you guys." If I were standing with my buddy and a teacher said "I need to see you guys after class," I DEFINITELY wouldnt be nearly as worried as if that same teacher said "I need to see YOU TWO." For some reason "YOU TWO" connotes that somebody is in trouble. Maybe I'm just crazy....I dont know....maybe I need to just shut up and go watch Glee...

2. Drug stores are funny in the way they shamelessly contradict themselves by selling the absolute most unhealthy and processed food known to man (j'ever notice nothing there is fresh?) and in the next aisle sell overpriced "gimmick" kits and pills to make you lose all the weight you gained by eating all the Nutter Butters they sell? And they simultaneously sell cigarettes AND nicorette?? I have written about drug stores before, I know. I hate drugstores. They are everything that is wrong with America.

3. On drugstores still: I love how they (once again) shamelessly and unabashedly sell all kinds of unhealthy, immoral, disgusting junk....set out in plain view for everyone to see. YET, at the same time, they have to use doublespeak to sound all dignified and to guide customers where they can find items for "personal" problems "too inappropriate" to mention by their real names. Do any of you actually know what "incontinence" means, for example? Why can't they just say "bedwetting crap and Depends?" Since when is Rite Aid this "moral bastion" to protect us from the way things really are? I also love "family planning." This is a good one. I think "Sex crap" would be fine....what's the big deal? And since when does KY motion lotion stuff have anything to do with "planning" a family anyway? "Jeez....if I dont put this warming liquid on you, and then massage it into your lower back, we might not have a little Johnny!!!" Come on....get real....

4. Not only are Arabic terrorists cowardly-monkey-bar-training-videotaping-morons....but did you also ever notice they always wear lame, oversized, 1980's style eyeglasses? Seriously. All the jihad idiots who have poor vision must look for the biggest, ugliest aluminum frames available. You'd think with all that jihad money they have given to them by the Saudi's that they'd at least go for some Geoffery Beane or Polo or something stylish. Maybe that is why they hate us: Maybe all they can get in those caves are the eyeglasses people donate at the grocery store and put in those "Lion's Club" box thingys...

5. After careful consideration, I have come to the finite conclusion that you can sing the line "ALL OVER THE WORLD!!!" and it would adequately fit as the final line in ANY musical EVER written. Period. It doesnt matter what the storyline happens to be...."ALL OVER THE WORLD" fits the ending of whatever particular song absolutely perfect. (You really need to hear me sing this to fully get the effect of what I am saying...but trust me)