You know, I used to worry that the questions I occasionally pose as inspiration for a possible story premise are "silly" or "goofy." But I'm not worried anymore, because I just came to the realization that the Arthurian Legends are just 80 different answers to the question, "What if you were a kid whose parents were always fighting. Also, they're deities."
"I've been so busy lately, I haven't even had time to think!"
Have you ever been sick, or home bored with nothing to read and nothing good on TV, and found your mind wandering to strange places? Where did you start, and where did you go? Do you dwell on a problem, think about a person, ponder the conceptual?
Where might your mind wander if you had the next hour to do nothing but sit and think?
What if food and rest were not barriers, and you had an entire day?
A week? A month?
Would you become trapped in your own mind? Could you stand to be with yourself for so long without the distraction of outside stimulation?
Little Joey and his Uncle Bob sat in uncomfortable silence in the living room.
"Hey Joey, do you like jokes?" said Uncle Bob.
"Sure," said Joey, unenthusiastically.
Now Uncle Bob realized he'd put his foot in his mouth. All the jokes he knew were too dirty for an 8-year-old. He had to think on his feet.
"Ok, here's a good one. Two dictionaries escape from the library. While hiding, one says to the other," Uncle Bob could barely contain his smile during the dramatic pause, "one says to the other, 'what if thesaurus?' Ha!"
Little Joey winced and prayed his parents would be home soon.
Sheila paced through the apartment frantically.
“Oh my God. I should order a pizza!” Earlier that day she had done some baking. Pot brownies for herself, and gluten-free ginger cookies for her husband. He was allergic to wheat and loved ginger, so she made cookies with real, fresh ginger and a gluten-free dough.
She’d eaten a brownie about 2 hours ago, and Robert continued to cram ginger cookies into is mouth. “So go ahead and order a pizza. Damn, these are really good.”
“Thank you!" she smiled, dialing the phone. "I’m glad you like them.”
An answer on the other end. “Dominic's. Can I help you?”
“Yes! I’d like to place an order for delivery.”
“Sorry, no deliveries after 9PM.”
“Oh no!” She turned to Robert. “They’re saying they don’t deliver now.”
He swallowed. “Gimme the phone. Hello?..”
As he spoke, Sheila thought about her lack of pizza and sulked. Damn! If only she had called earlier. It was OK though. She’d had fun talking to her husband. “I hope he goes to sleep soon so he can be refreshed for his big drive tomorrow...” her mind wandered.
Robert handed her the phone back and said, “Here, tell them what you want.”
“Oh cool! Hi! I’ll have a regular pie and a bottle of coke.”
“Ok, regular pie and a coke. Ten minutes. Thank you.” *click*
Sheila paused. “Ten minutes? How can they deliver in ten minutes?”
Robert had put his shoes on and stuffed another cookie in his mouth. “They’rf fnot, I’m gunnah phick it uph.”
She felt terrible. He had to be up early; he should have been in bed already, and now he was going out late to pick up a pizza just to satisfy her whim. “No! I didn’t want you to have to go out. Let me call them back and cancel.” She started to dial.
“No! Sheila, c’mon. Phlease don’t do that.” he said as he chewed.
Sheila was startled at how insistent he was. “Well, ok, thanks… but… why? Why would you want go out of your way for me like that right now?”
He smiled, revealing a mouth full of crumbs. “Youf mnade mne gingfer cookhies.”
These two ladies are like the men in black, but every time a crisis arises and the planet is about to be obliterated, the solution is that they have to have sex with the aliens. If a bystander witnesses something they shouldn’t have, they flash their boobs at them to erase their memories.
Setting: Male & female colleagues chatting over lunch in the office cafeteria.
Man: Tom was really yelling in the conference room today. You should have seen him, he was pissed. I think some of his staff is actually a bit mad at him for it.
Woman: Good thing he’s not a woman, they’d be furious.
Man: What’s that supposed to mean?
Woman: Being a female boss just carries different weight than being a male boss. You have to be really careful not to over-react to anything or they’ll accuse you of being fragile and emotional for the rest of your career. But when a man is yelling in the conference room, people get a uncomfortable & then get over it, and he’s not thought of much differently or respected any less.
Man: That’s not true, it’s probably just that women actually DO get overly emotional sometimes; it’s just in their hormones, and men don’t have the tolerance for that sort of thing.
Woman: So you don’t think that women are perceived differently than men when they’re being aggressive?
Man: Not at all. Aggression is aggression, and it’s reacted to for what it’s worth. Not for whether it’s a man or a woman.
Woman: Ok. Have you seen that new Tag Body Spray commercial? The one where they’re saying “Warning, Tag body Spray may cause bumps, bruises…”
Man: Oh yeah! And it’s all these chicks that smell the spray and then attack him. That was great.
Woman: Yeah, pretty funny. But what if the roles were reversed? What if it’s a commercial where the woman sprays some perfume on, and all the men in the room literally jump on top her and knock her to the ground. What do you think?
Man: Well I don’t think they’d show something like that, they’d probably just show the men all looking at her and smiling; maybe doing something goofy like walking into something.
Woman: Right. Because it’s immediately disturbing to you to think of a bunch of men jumping on top of a woman. Because when that really does happen, it’s bad news. On the other hand it’s funny to see a bunch of women do that in a commercial because it’s so ludicrous that it would ever really happen.
Man: Well..l doesn't that just go to show you that women are different emotionally?
Woman: What it goes to show you is that society has different expectations of their behavior. You still want to tell me that women’s actions carry the same weight at men’s actions?
Man: Well that’s ONE example of..
Woman: Yes, just one example of the fact that society has different expectations of men and women, and therefore different thresholds of tolerance for certain actions. Women are supposed to be demure, and subservient, and if a bunch of them threw themselves on top of you it’s obviously to offer themselves to you and be your servant because they would do anything for a sexy Tag body-spray smelling guy like you. Meanwhile it’s disturbing if a man throws himself on top of a woman because it implies he’s demanding the submission of an unwilling partner. When a man yells in the conference room, he’s simply venting his frustration. When a woman yells in the conference room, she’s just a horrible bitch who hates men. She has dared to abandon her subservient position in society as lowly, passive, agreeable Woman, to the point of finding the nerve to actually yell at people.
(Man looks like he wants to say something but doesn't.)
Woman: THAT's why it’s different for women in the workplace. Because for every little mistake, for every emotion dared to be expressed, we lose a little respect. That’s why it’s more difficult to be a female boss than a male one, and that's why there are fewer of us. Personally I think women should intentionally be more aggressive in the workplace. Eventually people will become desensitized to the shocking image of an aggressive woman and society's expectations will even out. That's when you'll start seeing photos of Boards of Directors and Leadership Committees with as many women as men in them, and it ain't because we didn't have the capability before then.
Imagine you're in prison. Your friends & family send you letters regularly, but you are only allowed one care package per month. This package cannot contain anything dangerous, pornographic, upsetting, or banned from inmate possession. The box can hold up to a dozen things. What would you want? My list would probably look like this:
The color of your skin does not matter. We are all created equal. I don’t care if you’re black, white, brown, yellow, purple, red, blue… well, actually no, not blue. We have to draw the line somewhere.
First it's Blue Man Group, then Le Blue Girl, before you know it it's drowned people, choking victims, The Sad, that guy who sings that song, "I'm Blue, ladeedee ladeeda..."
It's a slippery slope, people.
Is in progress... to be constructed from these random reminders later:
Xp – psychological change
Xb – biological change
multiples of each
Xp required
compatibility with other Xp also required
various states, pre Xp
intrinsic vs. circumstantial; contants within values for Xp and Xb
related frustrations
society’s influence on various states of relationshis & overlap with p and b
