Finding Thinking: A Distancing Technique

I find that when I start to write about something I've noticed I often start with the phrase, "I find."

"I find that things seem different to me since the turning of the weather." "I find that in thinking about the self, one necessarily detaches oneself from the thing one seeks to understand. This necessary distancing disallows the intimacy needed to truly find the 'I'."

What a pretentious bore. That "in thinking" business is the same thing. They're crutches. Instead of just diving in to what I want to write, I feel compelled to soften, qualify, distance myself from what I'm trying to say.

Sort of like telling someone something and beginning with "I just wanted to say..." Infuriating. Of course you wanted to say it, evidenced by the fact that you are now saying it.

Or, in the classroom setting, a hand in offered up tentatively, the synecdoche called upon by the teacher, causing the student, incredibly, to blush in voice and declare, "I was just going to say..."

Sure. This is, of course, true. You were, I was, going to say to say it, and now we are saying it. Phrase equals moot. It cancels itself out. Logically speaking, it has no purpose.

But, of course, it does. It is rare that anyone actually does anything illogical. They simply are operating under a different logic.

So what do these "I finds" and "just going to says" do? Why haven't we laughed them out of existence?

I leave that to you, dear reader, as part teaching tool, part cop out.

Good luck.

Chomp

Major ice storm leaves major ice: I bit it walking in today. Thought I had it, kicked one leg this way, threw my rear end out that way, stabilized, then clunk. Not even a good, solid fall with the feet in the air, arm extending backwards. Sort of a half bend-over, catching myself on the jagged ice with my hands, immediately frozen from their contact.

Three minutes of careful snow stepping later, pull out my mitts for a glance over and man I should have worn gloves for all kinds of reasons. One reason: raspberry syrup between the digits. Happy Birthday. Little late, but the thought that counts, right?

Hustle up to nearest bathroom, rinky-dink band-aid and aren't-I-a-tough-guy, sweat from the rest of the walk pasting my shirt to my back, a you-deserve-it cup of coffee. I'll give you a fair trade--that monster truck that ripped past as I gave a very personal hello to the sidewalk stopping to ask if I'd like to make the rest of my journey in the front seat. Why should he get a free show?

I didn't.

Contingencies and A Lot of Whether...

Can there be a difference in the quantity of weather?

I'm reminded of my consistent complaint that there is no such thing as a "very unique event." A thing is either completely unlike anything else or it is not.

Or is it? Each snowflake is different, I hear, but, really, aren't they pretty much all the same? And they're really not all that unusual. Look outside right now. But what about a tractor trailer jackknifing in another jackknifing tractor trailer, their bulks and cargoes colliding and combining, through a unique confluence of barometric pressure and wind gusts, into a new, unique form of transportation called the foxtrot double-wide.

Wouldn't that be very unique? Certainly more so than a measly ol' snowflake.

Speaking of those guys, don't I experience weather mostly as it relates the effect it has on my level of perturbation? That is, if I walk outside and on my way to jumping into my new FT Double Wide and I don't take note of what's going on with the temperature, breeze, sunniness, etc., isn't it lacking in umph, thus needing more to make itself known?

Isn't it?

Now My Empty Cup Is as Sweet as the Punch

Walking out into a bluster a few months ago, the song "Wendy" by The Association popped into my head, apropos since I had mistaken the name for many years, and old habits die hard.

A friend of mine, whom I had actually met only two days before and spent many hours with since, walked out behind me and noted that the song had found its way out of my brain and into my throat.

"Do you just have a song going through your head all the time?" He asked. I was unsure if I was being mocked. He assured me I was not.

Succored, I thought, "What a charming quality, all this singing I guess I do. How pleasant I must appear. How jovial and warm hearted. How avuncular."

All to plan until a few days ago I walked into my room and found that I had the theme song from "America's Funniest Home Videos" running along in between my synapses. Not only that, it had been playing for a full minute before I noticed. What on earth could have inspired this anachronism? Was I hit in the groin just now? Did my cat make cute with a box of cereal on the kitchen counter? Lose my pants in a public place?

Huh-uh.

The magazine cover I just spied was decorated in the colors Red, White and Blue...

For the funny things you do...

America...

Et cetera...

I know all the words to this song, I discovered. Not just the refrain.

The entire thing.

How did this happen. All those hours, straining, crying, memorizing Fire Side Poets, Capitals of Spanish Speaking Countries, Cell Reproduction.

Current State of Retention: Bupkis.

I don't have bon mots from Sartre and Balzac running caressing my think meat throughout the day. I've got Saget and jingles. Cheesy 60s pop music--which I love, but can't I get some classy stuff to stick around up there, too?

I want to be the kind of guy who can quote Dickens and Mankiewiez, reference factoids about historical epochs, display an effortless understanding of complicated concepts so that I can be the kind of guy who's actually way too cool to do any of that stuff.

What's with all this? Why is it that the song "The Dance" by Garth Brooks is more important to me than any poem I have ever read? I don't even like country music, but OMG he needed the pain to get to that one moment he can't imagine his life without and I KNOW JUST WHAT HE MEANS.

Jeez. The person I want to be and the person I am need to get together and hash some stuff out.
We'll keep "Muppet Babies" if we can get the lyrics to a solid string of Cole Porter tunes.

A few cocktail recipes would be nice, too. I'd say that is worth half a season of "Step By Step."

And, seriously, if we could finally get down pat some solid base of appreciation for opera we would throw in everything we know about Oprah's personal life, every headliner celebrity marriage of the past eight years, and Michael Jackson's baby's name.

Sound fair?

A tip

When next time your barista asks you if you would like room for cream in your coffee, tell her (or him) "no thank you."

But I want cream, you say.

Pipe down. You may have it. The trick, the eponymous tip of this writing is that even when there is no room left for cream, there is still room for cream.

I don't know what they're trying to pull, but the mark-up on coffee is high enough without them shorting us on the principal.

"You Go Girl"

Could it be that this phrase, so assumed to imply a sense of unity and encouragement within "the sisterhood," started off as a command that the other leave the speaker alone?

To a crowd in the break room, 1983(?): "Can you believe I just told my man what was what? He had it coming. His head is still spinning and it'll be days before I even think about giving him my business."

"Yeah."

"Right on."

"Tell that story."

"You got him."

"Keep laying it down."

And then, hoping it all would end, and pointing at the door, "You. Go girl."

The others, misinterpreting into indelibility, turning their attention to this neologism: "Oooh yeah."

"Keep it sassy."

"Make it stick like it's never gonna leave."

"That's out the door."

You may think this is moot. That this phrase has gone the way of the pet rock. Wrong--all of you.
Though I wish it were so.