You always here that dogs are man's best friend, they are loyal, they are true, and they are forgiving. But what they have us beat on hands down is being freaking happy. Here is an animal that has the same reaction to a steak as they do seeing you come out of the bathroom. Now that is downright seeing the sunny side of everything.
The leader of my Buddhist study circle always talks about the key to peace is living in the moment. Animas are way better at it than we are. A dog could just finishes puking, or eating puke, and see a squirrel and get right back into tail wagging. Wow. Our Gurus are everywhere. Sometimes they don't even have opposable thumbs. Kind of hard for them to hold a mala though.
So this happened today. My friend put this meme on my Facebook page. To be clear this is the friend I make fun of in my act for putting only flowery, good, hippie-dippie things out there in cyberspace. So any photos of jars of honey, peace signs or blooming orchids that show up on your page can probably be traced back to her. She posts at like 6:00a.m. too before yoga. The whole thing is just unamerican?
Then my buddy Dan sends me a Facebook message asking me if I will do a radio spot because they are talking about a new study that suggests that men prefer women to laugh at their jokes than actually be funny themselves. Clearly the universe wants me to talk about it. So let's do this.
http://www.siasat.com/english/news/men-prefer-women-who-laugh-their-jokes
The study is probably true. But not because old movie stars are evolved and men are pigs. Well not
justbecause old movie stars ... Seriously the couples that work are the ones that perfectly blend an introvert and an extrovert. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak are an easy example. It makes sense. No? You can't have two comedians dueling it out in a relationship. You need one person to deliver and one person to roll their eyes and blush with disbelief at what just came out of your mouth. Trust me. It's the only way it can work.
What stinks about the study, if it is true, is that women want their men to be funny whether or not they are too. It is a quality always listed when people ask those silly what do you want in a man Cosmo-esque questions - sense of humor. So come on boys. Catch up already.
“Explaining humor is a lot like dissecting a frog, you learn a lot in the process, but in the end you kill it.” - Mark Twain
It sounds simple doesn't it? People are giving money away to folks with good ideas. You have good ideas. All you have to do is write them down and poof! Well it's about as easy as the 48 hours following a voicemail from a friend saying she needs a favor. And its just as nerve-racking.
I wrote a grant proposal today. I wanted to do something fun and my dentist was booked so I thought "What the heck?" It's an odd thing to fill out an application justifying yourself, your vision, your career, your art. You go through some strange emotions ranging from "Oh god this is stupid." to "I'm a lock!" All the while running through your head all you hear is that song from A Chorus Line "God I hope I get it. I hope I get it."
I'm sure biologists ave their challenges when grant writing. But getting an endowment for the arts is its own fresh hell. I mean you can't really expect a nerd in a lab coat to be able to sell tickets to his frog study in some bog some where. But art requires an audience. And therefor you could argue that if it is good enough to deserve a grant shouldn't it good enough to be self-sustaining through ticket sales? God I hope the committee doesn't read this.
"Did you eat?" "Have you eaten?" "You really should eat something." You hear people ask you this all the time when you are going through a crisis. Its ironic. On a regular night if you are starving in the middle of the night you end up spreading cream cheese on a freezer-burned toaster waffle. But when there is a death in the family people you haven't seen in years feel the need to bring you a casserole.
I know they just want to help. There's really nothing else that can be done to show their emotions. I remember in high school when my mother was in the hospital and my friend Jenifer brought over a tray of lasagna. I thought what is this for? My dad did most of the cooking. I actually am going to eat better because my mom got sick. That's weird. What has to happen to my family to get gas for my car?
The kind of food you get is of course comfort food. The name implies it doesn't it? Desserts, sandwiches and trays and endless trays of pasta. Nobody ever tries to comfort you with a salad and Kale chips do they? No way. I don't care if they do call it a bed of lettuce. It's not comfort food.
So far since my father passed I've gotten a steak dinner, pizza, stromboli, cookies, cheese, crackers and wine. If you're in the neighborhood you should stop over. You're so thin. You should eat. "What am I going to do with all this food? Eh?"
I was about five-years-old when I was coming out of a store with my dad. He asked me if I wanted a gumball. That was pretty much like asking me if I want a beer now in 2015. Um, yeah. So he gets me one. Just then he notices two or three kids standing up against the wall of the store staring at us. "Come here", he says. My dad bought everybody one. My folks were big on that whole "if you don't have enough for everybody" thing.
It was in that spirit that I reluctantly suggested to my mother that we could donate my dad's body to science. I was shocked at the yes I got. Being both Catholic and squeamish I never thought the idea would fly. I think she was just too upset to tell me how ridiculous I am. But I'm a Law & Order fan and Big D loved a suspenseful Lifetime movie now an then (he was very evolved). So I thought what the heck.
Luckily for us we are in the Cleveland Clinic hospital system. If you don't know it's a world renowned teaching hospital. As a kid I remember a shah of somewhere or other coming to town and renting out an entire floor for his entourage as he got a procedure done there. In Cleveland? Yes. We have more than pierogies and quarterbacks that don't live up to their hype. Plus, we rock.
Well the procedure went very smoothly. I'm going to do it myself. It saved my mother a lot of grief too: no casket, no urn, no picking out his best suit, blah blah. Plus I put it on Facebook and I am hearing from my doctor friends how reverent they are with these donations and how appreciative they were of this gift. This quote really got me on the clinic's home page:
“Am I deserving of this? Am I really learning enough? This person who didn’t even know me, gave me the last gift they had to give, I have to make it worth it, I have to learn every detail, and become a doctor with this knowledge, with this experience, and help patients for years to come! They’re giving the gift of medicine to hundreds, thousands of others. That can only be paid forward. ...and I can donate my own body. Then I’ll have settled my debts to this man once and for all.”
– Excerpted from My Body by Eric Coble (medical student speaking to cadaver) and based on the writings of Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine Class of 2015
I have also heard from a few others that they didn't even know they could do this and they are going to consider it for themselves. So down the road when we are watching CSI: Something Future-ish, Big D may have helped catch the killer.
http://portals.clevelandclinic.org/bodydonation/Home/tabid/5323/Default.aspx
