theplatypus
innocenceApparently, I've led a very, very........very sheltered life. Here I am,to all appearnces a competent, professional female in my mid-30's. I get asked to speak at seminars, lead groups and serve on boards. People don't (typically) burst into laughter when I walk into the room. I can chew gum AND walk at the same time. I don't put white-out on my computer screen. Basic intelligence seems to be in working order.
However, it has recently come to my attention that over these past thirty-odd years, I've been wandering (and wondering) around this world oblivious to the sexual slang floating around my ears. I've been smiling in blissful ignorance as horrifyingly gross/disturbing/degrading phrases have been uttered in my presence. I've completely missed them. Good lord.....how embarrassing.
In less than 30 days, I've learned almost five news sex-slang words that I never knew existed. Phrases that have apparently been around for a long, long time. My nice, clean, little world is becoming more and more smudged.
The first, I've been told, is a relatively new phrase that today's young whipper-snappers are using. "That girl's got good brains" is not a compliment about intelligence. Oh..no. It turns out this is a phrase used by boys -- I use the term "boys" because anyone tackless enough to utter the phrase doesn't deserve to be called a "man" -- is used to describe a girl's.....oral talents. Hmmmmm....makes me frightened to think what "book worm" means today...
The second phrase, I learned just last night, courtesy of my slang-wise husband (and no, I really don't want to know how he knows all of this). Chicken-head. Yes. Chicken-head. In case you're wondering it means the same thing as the "brainy chick" comment.
Hmmm.....brainy chick..have I just made up a new slang for a girl who's doubly-talent in that department?.....
The other three I can't even bring myself to write. It makes my fingers feel dirty even thinking about typing them. Excuse me while I go wash off my brain...it needs a good scrubbing.....
Finding God on the Chattooga
In case you're wondering, God lives in the middle of "Screaming Left Turn" on the Chattoog River.
I know because I met him there, screaming for mercy, deliverance and a way off the river that was sure to claim my sanity.
I'll never be able to fully understand the logic that led me to book a full-day, white-water rafting trip on the Chattooga River in Seneca, SC complete with level 5 white-water. Oh, sure, I've been white-water rafting before on a tame little river in North Carolina. Mostly level 1 or level 2 rapids (mild "bumps" in the water) with one level 3 (good-size bump in the water) rapid at the very end. That was fine. No danger of dying, little danger of actually falling in the water and a fun day in the sun. My kind of vacation.
However, on this "Summer of '05 Vacation" my husband and I were traveling with my brother and his wife. All three are major adrenaline junkies. I am not. If God had wanted me to battle major white-water, he'd have made me a salmon. He did not. And hence my troubles began.
The Chattooga River is considered a "Wild and Scenic River" and is also the site where the 1972 movie "Deliverance" starring Burt Reynolds, John Voight and Ned Beatty was filmed. Memorable quotes include "I'm gonna make you squeal like a pig" and "He's got a real purty mouth on him, don't he?" The gift shop sports a t-shirt with the heart-warming phrase "Paddle Faster...I hear banjo music." I almost bought one.
The weather that day was beautiful. The sky blue and my heart surely hammering faster than was healthy. We chose an older guide for the trip. "Phil" (pictured in the back of the raft). My theory, if you're going to risk your life on white-water, might as well do it with someone who's obviously survived a few trips down the river.
By 9:30 that morning we were on the river. For over 4 hours we battled level 3, 4 and 5 rapids. Thankfully, the rafting company wouldn't allow us "novices" to navigate the two level 6 rapids that recent rainwaters had created. Those, we had to walk around. I was never more glad for terra firma. I swallowed enough of the Chatooga to officially be part of the river. But I did it. AND I did it without falling in!
The only thing I lost on that river was my sanity. It fell in somewhere around "Corkscew Falls" or "Crack-in-the Jaw". It sank to the bottom of the river and I haven't seen it since. Because that was when I began really understanding the THRILL of the experience. The undiluted joy of battling with mother nature and coming out
alive. That was when I knew that I HAD to come back and do it again. I became a white-water junkie and my world will never be the same again.
MindSay Quick Update /
I am feeling sleepy
On Sleep
I recently decided that an apt definition of "adulthood" is reaching that moment when you actually LONG for bed. You CRAVE a good night's sleep. In childhood sleep is the enemy. There is too much to do, too much to see and too much mischief to find to waste even a moment on unnecesasry sleep.
I am an adult and tonight I am tired. Very, very tired. It's only 8:30 and I've been longing for bed since before 7pm.
Do you remember when you were small? When bedtime was viewed as a punishment? You would be so very, very sleepy, but you would stubbornly keep your droopy eyes open because you were "too big" to go to bed so early. Invariably, you pass out on the couch, in the floor or on mommy's lap only to be carted off to bed like the limp sack of flour that you were.
Tonight, I am tired and there is no mommy or daddy to carry me to bed. so I will be forced to trudge up the ever growing length of steps to bed. The stairs seem so very, very tall and there are so very, very many of them. But I am tired. And sleeping here at the computer simply isn't an option -- not if I plan to sit up properly tomorrow.
So, I walk up my stairs an adult. I climb into bed an adult. I snuggle under the covers an adult. And if I'm lucky, I'll dream the dreams of a child.....
Sweet dreams
The Platypus
I read the following and thought it was too wonderful not to share. Credit for this is supplied at the end.
Enjoy....
It was Christmas Eve, 1513. In just two more years, 78 year-old architect Giovanni Giocondo would be dead, having filled Europe with magnificent buildings and bridges that continue to stand unweathered in the year 2005. During that night he wrote a note to his friend, Allagia Aldobrandeschi. The note, like his other work, remains:
I am your friend and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not got, but there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take.
No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven!
No peace lies in the future that is not hidden in this present little instant. Take peace!
The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see - and to see we have only to look. I beseech you to look!
Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by the covering, cast them away as ugly, or heavy or hard. Welcome it, grasp it, touch the angel's hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty, believe me, that angel's hand is there, the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing presence.
Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty - beneath its covering - that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven.
Courage, then, to claim it, that is all. But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are all pilgrims together, wending through unknown country, home.
And so, at this time, I greet you. Not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you now and forever, the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.
From the Monday Morning Memo of the "Wizard of Ads".
Thank you Mr. Williams
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