Blog #46

A while ago we went to a play called Next to Normal, a musical about a woman with extreme mental illness.  A musical about extreme mental illness?  Well, it did have a couple of cute songs.  There was Home, Home on Deranged.  And the shrink’s love song to the woman with split personality – I’ve Grown Accustomed to Your Faces.  In the play, the psychiatrist asked the sick woman if she was happy on her wedding day.  She said, yes, she thought she was, and he said, “Being happy and thinking you’re happy are two different things.”  Really?  How are they possibly different?

Welcome back.  Are you happy?  Do you think you’re happy?  I hope you are deliriously happy and feeling well.  Did you notice that this was Blog #46?  Did you know that 46 is 2 times 23?  Are you good at math?  Most people aren’t.  Most people would say, “Fractions are fractious.  Algebra is all gibberish.  And ዠ is just Greek to me.”  I like math.  I taught high school math many years ago and now I tutor math to the inmates at the County jail.  Last week I taught Exponential Powers.  No, that wasn’t the inmate’s name; it was the subject!  I like teaching that topic because once you define what an exponent is, you can prove all the exponential postulates easily and logically.  Never mind, I know you don’t care.  Neither did the inmates. 

It used to be I was prepared

To lecture on things that are squared

I’d talk about powers

For hours and hours

Until I learned nobody cared.

Teaching math just serves to prove that no matter how hard you throw a dead fish in the water, it still will not swim.

Well here’s something you care about –shingles.  A friend of mine just got shingles.  I’ve had it before. What a ridiculous name for a disease!  It sounds like some kind of building material, as if the doctor said you had acute drywall.  Or hardening of the concrete or a pain in the asphalt.  There actually is a medical condition very much akin to construction, and a lot of my friends have it.  It’s called having a screw loose.

And speaking of names for diseases, I think history will come to show that constant cell-phone usage will prove to have been a mistake.  I see those teen-aged thumbs texting and clicking and clacking four miles a minute and I just know in a few years there will be some disability attributable to it all.  So naturally I have begun to come up with some names.  It pays to think ahead.   How about:  Thummy-ache or Digitalis or even Textually Transmitted Disease?

With the Royal Weddings (that’s right – there are two now) just around the corner, there has been a lot of talk about the English Royals (as opposed to the Kansas City Royals).  The other night I was telling someone that Queen Liz always carries a purse with only a lipstick, a hanky and a five-pound note in it.  What, no cell-phone, they asked?  And that made me think – who exactly would Liz call?

Hello, this is the Queen.  We would like a large pizza with Canadian Bacon delivered to the back entrance of Buckingham.  Hello, this is the Queen.  Can you do Our nails sometime on Thursday morning?  Hello, this is the Queen.  We’d like to sign up for NETFLIX so that We can watch The Crown.

On the other hand, who would call the Queen? 

Hello, this is Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas Queen, Defender of the Faith.  Who’s this?  Oh, Phil, they’ve hung up on Us again.

There’s something so romantic and elegant about Royalty, and even though we kicked them out in 1776, we are still nostalgic for all the pomp and circumstance.  Our style of democracy is better of course, but democracy does have its limitations, like when six wolves and a sheep are voting on what to eat for dinner.   Or when 535 clowns who call themselves Congress-people are trying to pass a budget.

Do you think Liz lounges around in sweatpants and a pair of red hospital-socks, eating caramel popcorn and watching The Crown on the telly?  I bet she does.  It probably makes her feel nostalgic for the good old days.   

Driving home I somehow pushed the NPR button on the radio.  They were interviewing a guy about his life-changing encounter with an apricot.  I did not make that up.  You know I’m telling the truth.  NPR has lots of good shows, but many times you just drop in on a conversation with a Fulani herdsman from Senegal whose right elbow looks exactly like Bill Cosby’s face.  Maybe you like that sort of stuff.

Quiz:  Of the 45 United States Presidents, what was the most common first name?  Yes, you can use Grover twice.  Answer later.

The professional football playoffs are in full swing and the Super Bowl is almost here.  Eagles vs Patriots.  Super Bowl parties are great, aren’t they?  That’s where the ladies, most of whom are not football fans, talk loudly and continuously so the men, most of whom are football fans, cannot hear the important stuff – the commercials.  Football is too violent.  Everyone agrees with that.  Concussions and joint injuries and long-term brain damage – well, I don’t think the country will put up with it much longer.  I can already see the future when the NFL will be playing Laser-Tag Football  and the only injuries will be the bruised knees the players get during The National Anthem.  Pass those little hotdog things.

Why is giving someone a dollar for three pieces of 25¢ candy the same as paying someone $41 million for two years of work?  In both cases you get a quarter back.  Oh-oh!  Was that too much math for you?  Should we go back to exponents?

I woke up with a great idea for a new product -- bacon-flavored Diet Coke.  Hey, the voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas.  And the voices are telling me now that it’s time to go.  I’ll leave you with a little saying from Mother Theresa: We can't do great things in this life . . We can only do small things with great love.  So give someone some great love today and come back to me next week.  See you then.

Michael                                             Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Answer:  James is the most popular Presidential first name.  Here they are: Madison, Monroe, Polk, Buchanan, Garfield, Carter.  I bet you thought it was Rutherford.