Monday, October 29, 2007

I Wonder About Weird Stuff

Does everyone get caught up in wondering? Often my wondering is sparked by what's right in front of me but not always. Sometimes it's sparked by something I saw or heard days ago that is finally surfacing in my brain. Sometimes I start trying to figure one thing out but get sidetracked by the idea of how that thing came about in the first place that it needs figuring out. Sometimes I find myself wondering about one thing and then another and then another. Sometimes I can't even begin to retrace my mental steps so it ends up seeming or sounding random.
Today while taking a shower, I wondered how people discovered pumice stones could be used to make your heels softer. (Can you just see someone thinking, "I know! I'll rub a rock on my foot. I could try granite. No, no. I could try sandstone. No, no. I could try pumice. Pumice! That's the ticket. I'll try that.") But then I wondered why it was called pumice. What's the root word there? Pum? Ice? Mice? I thought I should google it and find out - but then began to wonder what people did before google. I had an image of my life B.G. (before google) and then wondered if that was some form of heresy to connect B.C. and B.G. as if google and god were of the same caliber in terms of changing people's lives. What kind of heresy would that be called, do you think? (See how this works for me?) Later (but during the same shower) I wondered if Porter Wagoner said his name with three syllables the way the announcers today said it. (I grew up in Nashville and have only ever before heard it said "Wag-ner" but then I began to wonder if I had in fact heard it differently but didn't think about it at the time which made me wonder about the chemistry of memory.) Still later (when I was drying my hair) I found myself wondering how anyone could like Ann Coulter. And then (when I was supposed to be filling out forms for Mayhem to be on the Ultimate Frisbee team) I mentally wandered off and began to wonder why we eat chickens and not chipmunks. How did that evolve? Not that I'm agitating for people to eat chipmunks. In fact, I'm not much in favor of eating chickens really. But why chicken over chipmunk? There seem to be way more chipmunks around - even if they are smaller. Is it that they're harder to catch? That tiny Buffalo Forelegs would be too hard a marketing angle? THIS is the kind of (go on say it, USELESS) thing I wonder about when I don't mean to be wondering at all. I know it's called "absent minded" but absent implies your mind is away when really it's RIGHT THERE, packed to the gills, going full tilt. Shouldn't it be called "crammed too full to be allowed on the plane minded" (if we wanted to continue with the conventional vacation theme) or more apropos to the pace of thought "rabid weasel minded"?
I wonder.
Peace.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If it's any consolation, "my" radio station has been saying "Wag-ner."

And I wonder how much time you had for wondering while drying your hair.