Redefine

Imagine your brain as a canister filled with ink,
yeah, now think of your body as the pen where the ink resides.
Fuse the two; KAPOW! What are you now?
You're the human magic marker, won't you please surprise my eyes?!
Incubus, "Redefine"

Kapow! I'm surprised. Not that I expected anything less than utter awesomeness of this project-- when great minds of any gender get together, look out. I'm lagging behind because I spent all of yesterday moving servers from Oak Harbor to Bellingham and setting them up at my company's new offices. I got home at 1 am. The silver lining, though, was that I got to use my new mini Leatherman that I got for Christmas, and I burned off that Dr Pepper I had for breakfast.

I don't know if I can cover all the responses to all these posts that are welling up inside me, but here's my attempt.

Emily: Oh, Emily, how cool it would have been to have had a friend like you 8 years ago when I was 15. Instead, I spent my time writing crappy poetry, feeling sorry for myself, wishing that people would stop hating me for being smart and unique and just up and notice how cool I was. It wasn't until I was much older and I stopped feeling sorry for myself (and subsequently became much more interesting) that I started making significant friendships.

Helen: I feel so incredibly boring when I read your posts! I am the resident Queen Prude. For me, the occaisional finger wins out over any appliance (probably the one area in which I don't get all excited over gadgetry). Too many PBS specials about "where babies come from" at an early age served as a later impetus for celibacy (which is now slowly being reversed by male attention). But as for aural embellishments, I can offer this dorky attempt at learning to play the guitar. And as for the reason for Meg Ryan, IMO it's so that she could be in the movie Joe versus the Volcano, the only good movie with both Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, because it's not trying too hard and it's too Dadaist to be passed up.

Britney: I have no good relationship advice. All I can say is that I hope you don't end up bitter. I still have no clue how I ended up with my boy. I think it was simply because he saw a picture of me in go-go boots and liked it. Maybe you should consider go-go boots.

That person on eatonweb that Elaine linked to: The point is, you don't have to have a point to have a point. Goofy childhood cartoon wisdom serves as the best answer I can think of to such a sillly question.

Jeneane: As to melting, carving, and coloring: I think I did everything. My parents' coffee table still has scars from where I lit some candles on a paper plate (to catch the melted wax), and the candles burned through the plate and scorched the wood. We had a wood-burning stove in most of the places we lived after we moved off our sailboat, and flames and matches had an undeniable magnetism. Got lotsa burn scars, too. But I also painted, took things apart to see how they worked, tracked in mud, made forts out of blankets and sofa cushions, scraped myself up, and raised mosquito larvae in jars to see how they developed. And read and read, far, far into the night, way after I was supposed to be sound asleep.

Kenoki: Facing death is something everyone does differently. My own death doesn't seem to bother me much, although I do hope to delay it until I've read all the books I've wanted to read and travelled all the places I've wanted to travel. I think I can accept, too, the death of loved ones, although I've mostly been spared that trial for now (maybe the cause of my more casual attitude?). One thing that I can't stand, though, is the thought of dead things. Corpses. Ick. I don't like funerals. I don't like bodies laid in coffins. Staring at an empty shell of flesh seems to me a futile exercise and not necessary for grieving. I can understand entirely the creeped out feeling of knowing there's someone in a jar in your cupboard.

Sex, death, and melting. I think we've covered all the big philosophical issues in just one day. What's next? I can't wait.