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J: Gina's been beading, and I've been
poking. Lori got her hair done! No pictures yet, sorry.
We went to a couple fires this week, and also to my Dad's place for
a Patty Party. Smashed potatoes, cabbage, cakes, and cookies. Yum!
I've been diagnosed with Costochondritis,
which isn't life threatening, so I'll live with occasional exquisite
pains in my chest.
Joseph Pate wrote an HMR for The Island, which I think we have
already put in our queue:
The Island :)
Ewan and Scarlett
Watchable dystopia
Why'd critics hate it?
Also, I reHMR'd the movie Rounders. The previous
review was a bit weak.
When I sneeze and someone says "Bless you," I feel strange, like
I've suddenly received a message from medieval Europe. In a way I guess
I have received a message
from medieval Europe. I know, it's just an expression. For lots of
folks it's an automatic, unconscious response that doesn't really mean
anything. But that just makes the phrase more strange, or meta-strange,
even. It's almost as if the "bless you" is a verbal sneeze in itself,
spreading its memetic virus to unsuspecting recipients. It's not
necessarily offensive to me, it's mostly... weird. I shouldn't let it
bother me but it does sometimes.
I liked that episode of Seinfeld where the gang decided on a more
upbeat, modern response to a sneeze: "You are soooo good looking!" Some
of our Greenbelt friends have a similar phrase for whenever they hear
someone fart. They say, "Good for you!" Because, you know, farting is good for you.
Gina and I have our specialized personal sneeze phrases-- she likes to
hear "Alpengeist" when she sneezes, and I like to hear "Zeitgeist."
Zeitgeist is one of my favorite bars and Alpengeist is one of her
favorite roller coasters. We like being reminded of nice places after a
good sneeze.
Sometimes when other people sneeze I'll say "Zeitgeist" or present the
simple Apatheistic response, "Hey, you sneezed." But lately I've been
feeling more iconoclastic. I want the "bless you" crowd to feel as
strange as I do. I want to offer them a peek at my world, the same
sense of this cartoon-like mass insanity that I live in, which I'm
reminded of almost every time I sneeze.
For a while I was borrowing an adaptation of a "bless you" riposte from
the Brights--
after I sneezed and someone said "bless you," I would say, "May your
soul remain with you always." I suppose that phrase can be used after
someone else sneezes too.
I need a phrase as short as "bless you," with a similar connotation,
but one that is slightly more blatant in its craziness. Something like
"The alien in my closet says hi," or, "With this invisible wand I can
magically eliminate bacteria." Maybe those phrases are short enough,
though. Or maybe they would naturally shorten over time into "Hello,
aliens!" or "Staff of Not!" Nobody should really mind if I use these
new phrases; after all, they're just expressions. Like the "bless you"
phrase, they don't really mean
anything or have any physiological effect.
