11 April 2008

Must rush screaming to my defense, after reading my last post. Would rather not hack it all up and edit it, because in writing all this, I'm trying to be uninhibited in my honesty... warts and all (and all). But now I will scramble and clarify to the universe of imaginary readers of my blog that all the italic phrases in the 10 April post are deliberately stupid... I wouldn't really say "took straightway to the wind" or "beat a hasty retreat" or whatever... the point is that all these animal encounters I've been having lately are really just that stupid and corny and magestically absurd... the language is meant to fit the experience.

So that's what happened today. I woke up, like Gregor Samsa, to realize something else dreadfully odd about my appearance (in print, to go along with my reluctant Grizzly Adamsishness). That's probably going to be the whole day. I don't teach today, so I should probably manage to avoid the angry goose and his bitch (again, no disrespect to her, but all the disrespect in the world to him... don't fuck with my shit again, angry male goose, because I will stop my car, get out, and one of us is going to get his ass kicked... I'm 40% to 75% sure it's going to be you...).

Oh, but about accidental "animal magnetism" (fully aware that I'm misusing the term, and admit that I will never bother to learn what it really means, because I know it's some kind of 19th century pseudoscience, which surely isn't worth reading about in any considerate detail... I use it to mean, of course, the fact that animals are mysteriously drawn toward me lately, as though my new detergent included some traces of some pheromone that cries out to all nature : "come to me!)" ...when I was an undergraduate, I had this guy in my philosophy of art class who was well-meaning but just goofy as hell, and way too eager to volunteer his "insights" like this clarification of "what 'aesthetic experience' means to (him)"--
the previous year, he took his Jeep Cherokee (?!) up to Salt Sand (Rocky) Creek (State Forest) [or some place like that, pronounced as though we all knew what he was talking about, and had probably gone "up" there ourselves]

and he brought his didgeridoo (chortle!) and was chilling out, playing the didgeridoo by himself (gert!) when a honeybee came out of nowhere (chuck-!) and started, like, dancing (chuck-!) on the rim of the didgeridoo (chuckle! snort!) while he was playing it (snortle!), like it was just drawn to him, or to the music. (and this is when I remembered that this guy was always forever eating Twix and 5th Avenue Bars, and, doing the math quickly in my head, I finally burst out snortling, sputtering, laughing... crying with laughter, then crying with the crippling thoracic pain you get from kind-heartedly stifling your laughter too long... and then everybody turned around and looked at me like I was a total dick for laughing at him. I wanted to shout, in my defense: "but it was "dancing" with your breath, because of the candy bars!")

... I feel like that guy, whenever I have wild animal encounters. So embarassed by them.