Well, Blogger ate my last post, but the gist of it is that my Thanksgiving break kinda sucked, due to an extended visit from a 48-hour bug that kept (at various points in time) my dad, mom, brother, and me running to and from the bathroom for as much as 48 hours. I lost count, but mine was somewhere upwards of fifteen trips (and it was coming out both ends, sometimes at the same time). I'm still miles ahead of my brother, though, who managed to stay in the bathroom for a marathon twelve consecutive flushes! Kudoes to Andy. He's always been an overachiever. I'm mostly better now, but my system still hasn't gotten back on track, and my stomach objects when I try to put food in it, 'cause it's apparently gotten used to being empty.

So, that re-posting out of the way, I'd like to share with you a bit of humor I discovered. Here's the link, if you want to read the whole thing. I'll just give you the part that made me chuckle:

You can have the whole cheerleading squad,
I want the girl in the tweed skirt and the horn-rimmed glasses:
Betty Finnebowski, the valedictorian.
Oh yes.
First I want to copy her Trig homework,
and then I want to make mad, passionate love to her
for hours and hours
until she reluctantly asks if we can stop
because she doesn't want to miss Battlestar Galactica.
Suma cum laude, baby!
That is what I call erotic.

If that isn't chuckle-worthy, now imagine it being spoken calmly and soothingly with pleasant, new-age music playing in the background... Ah...

WARNING: POTENTIALLY OFFENSIVE POST

You know, I don't usually comment on anything controversial or offensive. Some of my humor is a little abrasive sometimes, but for the most part I keep my mouth closed when it comes to subjects that are potentially volatile. I feel inclined to be different today, though, so we'll see how it works out.

I remember listening to a Chris Rock stand-up recording in which he announces, "I love black folks, but I hate niggers." At the time, I hadn't erally thought that a racial slur could be used to distinguish between sub-sections of the population. Nigger is a derogatory term for a black person, plain and simple. Right? Apparently not. So, I got started thinking about other slurs for which you could draw similar lines. I've been through a number of ideas in my head, but the only one that really seems to fit exactly with "nigger" is "fag." Spic, wop, raghead, sand nigger, cracker... I really can't think of sub-sections of the population to which to apply those without including the entire associated population (except for raghead, naturally, but it's a little different. It's more like a commentary on cultural and religious headgear than a racial slur. Kinda like jar-head). But what about things that aren't racially motivated? The only dividing issue that I can think of that's generated anywhere close to as much tension in people (though it's still several orders of magnitude less severe than race) is sexual orientation. Queer, homo, fag, queen... The list goes on, and none of them are complimentary. But out of all of them, "fag" just strikes me as the worst. It can be said with so much more venom in the voice, so much more contempt than any of the others... It's a shame, really. But not until the other day did I hear it used by anyone to distinguish a particular subset of the homosexual population. It was in reference to a friend of a friend, who happens to be a man so extravagantly effeminate and totally emasculated that he even makes me shiver (which is quite a trick, lemme tell you). The comment was "He's such a fucking fag. That's exactly what perpetuates the negative stereotype of gay people." At the time, I kinda wondered about the comment... After all, isn't it people's perceptions of the guy's behavior that perpetuate the negative stereotypes, rather than the behavior itself? It's only negative because we see it that way, right? That's neither here nor there now, though, because I've stopped worrying about it. My question is this... If "fag" means "a grotesquely effeminate male who epitomizes the antithesis of everything I've come to associate with masculinity without actually managing to be feminie," then what do the other slurs mean? Homo? Does it mean anything aside from "homosexual," but with a negative connotation? Queer? Queen? (I'm not sure, but I'm guessing "queen" is restricted to describing transvestites). Eh, I suppose it doesn't really matter, and I don't know why I felt inclined to comment on it. It's not even that interesting, come to think of it.

So, there's this girl... Well, actually, there are lots of girls. But there's one in particular that I really like. Her name's Shelly. Yesterday, she had a sore back, so I gave her a back rub. She said it felt nice, so I kept it up for about fifteen minutes before my hands got tired. It was a completely normal thing, and aside from the fact that I enjoyed the physical contact, it was perfectly innoccuous (sp?). So then, tonight, we went out bowling with some friends. She and David were being silly and bowling with their off hands (David with his right, 'cause he's left-handed, and vice versa for Shelly). Well, Shelly screwed up, and wound up doing something bad to the thumb of her left hand. So, doing the gentlemanly thing, I offered to rub it for her. Granted, the attempt didn't last long, since it was my turn to bowl a few seconds later, but I couldn't help but notice something weird. While rubbing her shoulders had been normal, but pleasant, rubbing her hand was exciting and actually made me kinda nervous. So, my question is this... We touch everything with our hands. I'm typing with them right now. We scratch with them, play musical instruments, drive, write, motion, guesture, paint, work, and play with them. So why is it that our hands, which touch everything, are somehow more intimate when being touched than other parts of the body that are far less promiscuous? Of course, there's always the possibility that it's not that way for everyone else, and I'm just weird like that.