Brain Constipation

The term “brain fart” is often used (by myself, anyway) to describe a temporary lapse in memory or brain to mouth function. As in….

“Hi, my name is……uh…. brain fart!”

I’m supposed to be working on an article today. I have to pick something to inform young people about, and make it interesting. I just can’t seem to settle on a single subject. And just when I do, I can’t think of a way to make it flow. So you see…. brain constipation.

First I was really grasping. Maybe an article on how they get lead into pencils. Or I could go with describing all the wierd and off the wall jobs helicopter pilots have. What I really want to do is write stories, and they tell me that non-fiction articles can be stories, but I want to make up stuff. I don’t want to do research. Here, I’ll make up an article about how they get that lead into pencils. Right here and now.

GET THE LEAD OUTTA YOUR PANTS!

a silly article by N. Palscak

Have you ever been doing your math homework and find yourself thinking, “How do they get lead into these pencils?” For dozens of years, complete and total geeks like yourself have wondered the same thing. When people do get the nerve to ask, they’re usually given easy answers like “They’re made in factories.” Well, I decided to get down to the bare facts.

Suprisingly, my research led me to a small village in Papau New Guinea. Local legend tells of a people who have great skills with termites. The story says that thousands of years ago, their cheif saw termites eating up a tree and knew that if he could direct those termites, they could cut down trees, carve out boats, whittle elegant designs on the beams of their homes, and other things that, frankly, this chief was sick and tired of doing. This guy was chief and he could have just told his wife to go chop down her own trees, or at least hired somebody to do it, but he wasn’t very smart. He did, however, have a gift with termites. A gift which has been passed down from generation to generation. I witnessed the fruits of this gift with my own eyes.

After two weeks on the thick, heavy rivers, chasing ghost stories, I wound up in a small grove of banyan trees, ten miles from any village. I stood in the midst of those ancient trees and shouted the ancient words to announce my presence to the termite people.

“Little pig, little pig, let me in!” I yelled to the banyan trees.

“Not by the hair of my chin-y-chin-chin!” came the sure reply.

They accepted me without question and I saw what few men alive today have ever seen. Termites working together, creating thousands of ten inch pieces of cirular wood, which are then carried to another team of termites who paitently, and skillfully, eat the center of that wood, straight through. The older, skilled people of the village have the honor of sliding the lead into the wood. While the younger apprentices, squeeze that little metal thingy around the eraser at the bottom.

Why, after all these years, did the termite people allow their great and sacred art be shown to the world? For this simple reason. I asked.

N. Palscak deep in the forest of Papau New Guinea with the Termite People (photo by say_cheese 05)

Laura is celebrating her 24th birthday today. She was born 3 years and 2 weeks after me, and we’ve been sisters ever since.

We fought and cried quite a bit when we were little. My knee once made contact with her front teeth. By “made contact” I mean, I hit her so hard, the teeth fell out. She dropped a tiny ceramic duck I had. By dropped, I mean she threw it at the tv. We fought over covers, who was going to stay longest in the pool, who got the bigger cookie, who got to sit in the front seat of the car.

Ah, good times.

At my parents house, her and I are still usually in tears, but now it’s because we make eachother laugh so hard. Thankfully, our husbands get us both (at least they seem to) and get along as well.

She married her perfect match, Josh Pomeroy, and they’re currently living adventerously in Indiana. (Josh is quite the cutie-patootie.)

Our family is horrible at keeping in touch so I really miss out on the day to day stuff. (I’m just as much to blame.)

Laura, I’m so glad that we’re more than sisters. Thank you for your friendship.

So, now when are you going to come visit me? Oh, and by the way…..you’re more than welcome to provide our parents with their first grandchildren. I won’t try to fight you for “first” on that.

What the…. Part Deux

You may fondly remember my first documented What the….. moment.

I present, for your snickering enjoyment, another What the… moment, brought to you by the State of Florida.

Let’s say you’re a state. I don’t know…. let’s go with Florida, since we already mentioned them.

Now this state has a unique strip of land with only room for one main road runnning down the center of it.

Now this so-called “Road” (we’ll call it US 1) has no shortcuts. If you want in, you take US 1, and if you want out….. yep, US 1.

So if you get stuck behind some guy from Wisconson who thinks the mangroves that smell like poo, are an amazing site to see and doesn’t notice he’s driving 10 miles below insanely slow, you learn to deal.

Or if you only have 10 minutes to get to South Miami and it’s a 45 minute drive, the only way to get there faster is to drive faster. However, you may have the previous situation to handle.

Before I go any further, the mere fact that people live on a strip of coral sticking out into the sea, is in and of itself a “What the….” situation.

Moving on.

Now that you have a mental picture of what traffic might be like, imagine somebody thinking the following:

“Gee, you know what would be cool? If we built 125 foot cement poles with cameras on them, we could stick them between the northbound and southbound lanes of US 1. Then we could inform other drivers via electronic signs of any traffic problems ahead.”

Then imagine someone replying by saying:

“That is an excellent idea.”

The madness continues.

Because enough people got together to actually make it happen.

So be not afraid, dear traveler. When you’re about to hit the 18 mile stretch, and traffic isn’t moving, they will tell you why.

And with that bit of insider information, you get to do absolutely nothing about it.

Summer Day

I’m sorry for overwhelming you with new posts. I’ve been trying to space them out, but I HAD to post this.

I just got another writing assignment back and my instructor really liked it. I hope you will too.

The assignment was to write about a childhood place.

————
The filter buzzes steadily as it sucks crickets, horse flies and crusty brown leaves out of the pool. The sun is high and bright, with no clouds to hide behind. I stand still for a few minutes, letting the sun melt away the air-conditioned chill. Robins and blue jays chatter with their families in the weeping willows. Fat hairy bumblebees hover in the patch of clover near the pool ladder.

With beads of sweat now fully formed on my face, I reach for the ladder. As I step up, the ladder wobbles and the metal screeches against itself. At the top, I dip my foot in the water. I take a deep breath and jump. The icy cold is both a relief and a shock. I come up immediately, take a deep breath and laugh.

The chlorine in the water is already burning my eyes and the chemical smell is radiating off the water and my wet head of hair. I swim to the side of the pool and put my arms up on the warm metal trim. With my head resting in my arms I can hear the metal sizzle as the water evaporates into it.

A wandering breeze carries over the scent of hamburgers on the grill. Dad waves to me with a greasy spatula. My stomach tells me to get out of the pool.

The second I’m off the ladder, I run for my towel. The grass is cool and pokes at my feet. I pull the towel around me and bury my face into it. The water from my bathing suit trickles down my legs. The same breeze that was thick and warm before I went in the pool is giving me goose bumps. I watch the hair on my arms stand straight up, then hide myself under the towel again.

A local pilot is flying his bi-plane in the clear sky. The engine whines as he loops around and shoots straight up. Then, like Wile E. Coyote fresh out of solid ground beneath his feet, the plane hangs silent in the air for a moment and dives out of sight. The long limp branches of the weeping willow whisper among themselves. A golden dragonfly darts above the water, chasing mosquitoes and gnats in my backyard paradise.

My hair is almost dry and I set the towel aside. I close my eyes and wait for the sun to warm my skin again.

The End

Happy Day After My Birthday, To Meeeeee!

I got an e-mail from Phyllis, a co-worker, that I really enjoyed. It’s a long list of “facts”. I’m picking out my favorites.

A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.
A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
A “jiffy” is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
Almonds are a member of the peach family.
Babies are born without kneecaps. They don’t appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
If the population of China walked past you, in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament building is an American flag. (Is that true, Kristy?)
Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.
There are more chickens than people in the world.
Winston Churchill was born in a ladies’ room during a dance.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks; otherwise it will digest itself.

More chickens than people?