Talking Crazy

Do you ever talk without thinking?  Yes, I with the exception of our Vice Presidents, Joe Biden and Nelson Rockefeller, am the expert on this type of communication.  The process must begin with honesty and touch of madness.  I am not talking about a turret kind of blurting out although I think it is related.  I am talking about being in a conversation and words come into your mouth without passing through your brain and before you know it, your tongue and lips are moving.  Your see the reviews on peoples faces before your ears relay the words to your brain. 

The other day, I was asking someone to tighten up my ankle bracelet because with my fat ass I cannot reach it, breath and use my fingers at the same time.  So I asked for help and I said without thinking, just move it to the left. The statement came out before I thought about it.  Move what to the left?  Actually, it needed to be moved to the right which is what I wanted to say but for someone facing me, it would be to the left.  I said the correct direction but if I had time to think first, I would have said the wrong thing.  Sometimes I am talking and I do not know I am audiblizing.  Someone was asking me for an answer to some question and they pronounced the word in an awkward way so my mouth said,  "Maybe I could answer you if you could get the pronounsation correct!"  I felt rude and isolated. 

Over the years, I have learned to talk with my hand very close to my mouth so I can stop what my brain cannot.  The most sound that can get out is a mumble and I can explain that away.  Mostly now though, I just do not care what I say.  I do not want to be rude or hurt people's feeling so sometimes I nip it.  The older I get the less I care about how I am interpreted.  I genuinely feel no ill will for anyone, race, creed or color.  I have the baggage of growing up in a mostly white, English speaking America and the over/undertones that come with it.  I root out insensitive or derogatory words and vow not to use or think them.  My hand saves me from reactionary thoughts.

I think this is what it boils down to.  "In the end, hopefully, you will be judged on who your are and not what you say" They may not notice who you really are until your are dead because only then will you have stopped yapping your gums.

Plumbers

I learned a long time ago that plumbers are worth every penny they charge.  Not your construction grade plumber but the kind that come in your house and fix things under your sink.  There is a good change no human has been under that sink since it was installed.  Some animals, kids and insects can fit under there and get out safely.  I would get stuck, drop the pipe wrench which should not be required these days square on my face, smash my knuckles and only make the leak worse and now a critical gusher with lots of water and a small amount of blood running out from under the sink.  "Moses, stop the plague.  I will bow to the God of Israel's Plumbing service."

Never hire a fat plumber.  He man be quite experienced and know all the tricks except how to get his fat butt under that sink or behind the water heater without tearing up the drywall.  How will a man who cannot touch his toes reach around a toilet and finagle a gnuter valve without lots of blood and slaming things around.  When this big ole boy accidentally lights the cabinet on fire with the torch (to remove something that has degraded to the point of non-recognition) he will not be able to get up and put the fire out or even get out of the house.  The headlines will read "Plumber's death in sink repair called an accident".

My plumber is skinny musician and  probably nuts and he was in the gifted program in high school.  I think his teacher was a pedophile and now he is a plumber and a musician.  I called him the other day and he was either making a recording of a song or in the bathroom.  Sometimes I get sounds confused.  I asked him how much he would charge.  "Oh, $150-$175 dollars". "I would pay $50 so I did not have to think about the plumbing any longer than necessary" I thought.  I  also called Honda Paul, a guy who fixes my hondas and he is a little off himself.  The pattern here is that I must have a few bats in the belfry also because all of my business acquaintances are certifiably insane but do good work when the medication is on track.  Honda Paul does not do plumbing or answer the phone.  He reads messages and calls people back.

One problem with plumbers now is their age.  These young plumbers wear these big  pants and even if they are skinny there is the plumber's crack.  I am kind of a prude about things like that.  "Pull them pants up, I am not paying you to show me your crack".  Wen I was a young man, I would never have used that line.  Every time he put his hand in his pocket, his pants fell down.   I knew a girl plumber once.  Her name was Barbara Sneff.  The guys called her "Babs the Pipe Bender".  She called the male carpenters "hammer knockers".   They called me the Mud Doctor because I was a drywall maniac and I was going to college.  We were all young then but at least our pants fit well.

I will most likely give my plumber a tip for getting  on this project quickly.  I like that.  The other guy I called said he would fit me in and I have not heard from him in about a year.  I like people who have some concept of time.  I cannot stand to see people drive up in a car and sit in it for ten or twelve minutes just fiddle f****ing around.  Either get out of the car or get out of my driveway.  Get what you need out of the cabinet and/or get the hell out of the way.  I do not want the freaking receipt at Wally World so finish the transaction and fix the paper/ink ribbon later.   My plumber thinks this will be a "Simple In Out procedure" .  I think there will be some wailing and gnashing of teeth along with wall cutting, fire will be required and a lot of "What the f**** was someone doing this for?"  Regardless, the most wonderful wife unit will pay him well and I will be safe in the knowledge water will not damage my house until the hurricane season.  My plumber is also a carpenter.

Enough.

Planetary Protection

I just attended a seminar called Planetary Protection: Policies and Practices.  It was not quite as boring as it sounds.  They have the best bumper sticker ever.  "Protecting all the Planets all the time!"

This would have been a great seminar had it been in Colorado Springs or San Diego.  I am sure that all the people enjoyed coming to Cocoa Beach.  I enjoyed the Courtyard and the free food and drink.  I also enjoyed the speakers.  There were seven presenters and thirteen participants.  I think it was a nice trip for the presenters and they just happened to be giving a seminar while vacationing. 

Believe it or not, there is a group of people looking out for not just this planet but all of the asteroids, moons, satellite worlds or other planets.  It is a theoretical game and they take it seriously.  Carl Sagan  kicked of the mathematical probabilities some years ago.  There are probabilities of accidental  contact, of transference of viable spores and subsequent infection.  Someone calculated the probability difference between a slow decent to Mars and a quick descent and how much sterilization of the craft will occur on each approach.  They also calculated the probability that an organism(spores) would be transferred to Martian surfaces and the probability of those surviving  to produce life on Mars.  If the risk is greater than one chance in ten million, you have to clean your space craft better.  The entire Mars Rover, this last one they sent up was the size of golf cart.  There was 135 thousand square feet (three football fields) of surface area that could contain viable spores for contamination.  It all has to be cleaned to a density of less than 1 spore per cubic centimeter.  The entire craft could only have about 500,000 spores on it for launch go ahead.  500,000 spores can quite easily fit side by side on your little fingernail and a spoonful of dirt could contain a million spores.

So lets just say the other planets are safe.  An organism capable of reproducing would have to survive the cleaning, the trip in a radiation filled, oxygen less space for a year, then land on Mars without being burned up and land in some place with water, grow, replicate and then Propagate.  There is about as much chance of that happening as our government actually doing anything important.  I am sure Saturn is safe also. 

But lets be clear, they have a great bumper sticker, a good presentation and ethics on their side.  Unfortunately, they are a government agency and are covered by a treaty with the United Nations.  I am sure at one time that meant something also.  But now it is just non-absorbent wiping paper.

Dilusional

The more I think about it, the more I like the word delusional.  Whenever someone calls someone else "delusional" I find myself chuckling.  Actually, being delusional can be a very serious problem.  An altered version of reality is scary for the non-delusional.  All politicians are delusional.  They take a class in it.  I knew a guy that regardless of the argument you put forth to disprove his statement, he would just repeat his position louder.   Many people said he was delusional but he was actually a stupid bonehead that enjoyed arguing.  

I remember my dad explaining someone as delusional.  It had to do with a football or baseball coach friend of his.  Dad got all serious and said, "I think he is delusional!"    I Actually think being deluded is becoming the normal state.  It may have always been that way except now with all the tweets, wired news and blogs such as this one, peoples opinions or delusions are expressed.  I am sure Southerners thought Abraham Lincoln was delusional.  Martin Luther was considered a delusional madman to most of his day.  My dad was fairly grounded.  His only delusion was trying to play fair and expecting others to play fair.  He was a radical, I know.

The guy that has been walking the length of Cocoa Beach almost daily for forty years is most likely delusional.  I wonder what his parameters are.  Is he governed by time, distance or foil heads from Meepzorp?  There was another guy that wore shorts three sizes too small and would ride a broken down old bike from Cocoa over the bridge ten miles to somewhere east of Eden.  At least he did not wear a super hero costume because that would have made in NUTS and delusional.  The Mohawk guy on the three wheeled bike may have been deluded but that would be the least of his problems.  He talked to stop signs, yelled at red lights, would not look at a human being and sometimes wore a skirt with no pants.  Maybe he was from Scotland.

The best parts about delusions are that they are comfortable and usually not dangerous.  They could be considered major tenants of our personality.  My little bubble of security is very cozy. 

Sanity

The other morning I was getting out of the shower and I heard a strange noise outside the window.  I glanced out and I saw a huge tornado, like the one in "The Wizard of Oz" coming directly toward me.  Of course I was mistaken and it was just the trunk of a palm tree.  This is not the first time I have thought a tornado was coming in my bathroom window. 

If I am sane or not sane cannot be determined by one palm tree tornado but there are indicators.  I watched a movie yesterday called "Proof" with Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins.  Sanity was a main theme and I concluded that being sane or not sane is not the issue.  Being useful or not useful is the true measure of usefulness.  You can be sane and completely useless or the reverse.  enas dna sselesu.  When I was at football practice, the coach asked a kid why he ran all the way across the field to try to tackle someone when his job was to stay where he was to prevent a reversal play.  The kid said, I don't know, I just had to attack someone.  He also said the Northern Lights were the result of God peeing on a rainbow.   That kid never was very useful on the football field and he was most likely not insane. 

I have insane thoughts all the time.  I wonder how we would run if we had three legs.  There are millions of different types of creature but none of them have three legs.  Some have one leg (snail-foot) and some like the Kangaroo seem to use the tail to sit on but that would be a second butt and we thought we had problems.   I saw a frog with three legs.  One of them went to a restaurant I guess.  The frog would hop, roll, croak and then steady himself and hop again.  What if when you shook hands with someone you did not like, you could not let go until you apologized for the transgression.  I read somewhere that the only books you get to read in heaven are the ones you gave away on earth.  I have given away a few books since hearing that phrase.  What if the only food you could eat in heaven was the food you gave to the poor while on earth.  Remember that book about the five people you will meet in heaven.  I thought about the five I would like to see in heaven.  That girl and her sister in the convertible BMW, I will give up four people for those two.  I would like to spend some time with Benjamin Franklin or Mark Twain.  Annie Oakley or Amelia Earjart would also be cool.

That tornado taught me something about sanity.  Like my supposition of a real tornado, sanity is fleeting and relative.  An autistic savant can be screwier that a bat's mustache but they can love and be loved.  There are some people and we all know them that seem very sane but also extremely un-lovable.  I drew a picture of a horse with no neck.  It sort of looked like a rhinoceros but when I draw a picture of a rhinoceros it looks like Pennsylvania.  I did draw a picture of a man with a wooden leg named Smith.  So what was the name of his other leg? (Mary Poppins)  One of my most favorite ridiculous sayings is  "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water".  This was explained that when water was drawn from a well or in short supply, everyone in the family used the same water for a bath and by the time it got down to the baby (last) the water was so dirty you may not notice a baby in the water.  The child would have drowned if you did not notice a big lump in the bath.  " Dang it Earl, was that a baby I saw going out the window?  Aw shit Helen, that is the second baby we lost this spring.  Someone should invent something to prevent that." 

Momma used to say Crazy is as Crazy does!  For sure.  Enough said.