Tastebud Ticklers
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Tag Archives: silliness
Inexplicably Impressive
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Ethereal Amours Heating Up the Interwebs
Infernally Yours
Thou mak’st me hot, O swain of mine, afire with passion, sure,
and art my furnace, blazing beau, so flaming your allure;
What is it getteth in my groove that thou hast, O my heart?
How heat I up, so quickly broiled, as roasting from the start?
Mayhap, thou sneaky Devil, thou hast dropped affection’s bomb
When I misjudged it literal and went to Match.com!
It’s Not Always Bad to be All Tied Up in Knots—Beats Falling to Pieces
Name that Malady!
Do I have Onchocerca volvulus, or is there just an eyelash stuck in my eye?
All Other Martyrdom is Naught before Mine
This harsh, persistent pain I have, O Doctor, tell me, please,
Can it be cured by some cheap salve, Or have I some disease
Beyond the scope of modern meds And pessaries and pills,
Like something Biblical in scope, One of those icky ills
You read about in magazines, See movies-of-the-week
About so frightful that you Realize that you’re a freak
To have such creepy plague, To be afflicted so, withal,
That even specialists will cringe And dash off down the hall
To hide behind their file Cabinets until you leave
Because they’re overwhelmed by the Bizarreness they perceive
Upon your person when they see Disturbingly displayed
Such malicious malady It makes them sore afraid.
What say, Sir Doctor? You detect My source of agony?
Who suffers worse than martyrs who Have papercuts, like me!
Well, shut my mouth! Maybe that nasty odor wasn’t Trimethylaminuria, but don’t just give me the brush-off.
Hey, Lookit What I Found!
Crows are a great source of pleasure to me. I admire their bold, graphic good looks: wiry legs and strong beak, shining eyes, and smooth feathers accented with iridescent shine. I enjoy listening to their noisy announcements and conversations, knowing that whether one is broadcasting his name in braggadocio or informing the rest of the neighborhood of what she’s discovered, there is often more brainy expression and interaction going than in many a text-messaging flurry from a pack of attention-deficient humans.
Crows can be aggressive and mean-spirited like humans, too, as I well know from working many years on a heavily treed campus where nesting season was Open Season on certain passersby whom the crows chose to bully. But for the most part, when they’re not busy trying to defend their territory they devote a goodly amount of time and energy to exploring and problem-solving and even humorous play, that is also surprisingly easy to see through an anthropomorphic lens. If I see a crow taking a particular interest in anything, chances are pretty good that I’ll find it interesting myself, should I follow its lead.
Shore Enough
I am too smart for you by half; you think you’re bright? Don’t make me laugh!
You think me infantile and boisterous, but cannot crack an oyster
With no knife? Ha! Silly chums: no fingers, no opposing thumbs,
And yet, I’ve dined on oysters thrice before you’ve opened one. How nice
That you consider yourselves wise to have your thoughts and synthesize
Them into action, yet still fail to see that mine makes yours seem pale,
When you consider that you’ve got advantages that I have not,
And still I’m able, while you strive and strain to merely keep alive,
To caw this jeering little poem at you from this, my beachfront home.
Things Seen and Unseen
I know I’ve talked here before about how easy it is to stop seeing what’s right in front of me because, well, it’s always right there in front of me. The ubiquitous becoming invisible, and all of that. But lately I’ve been thinking, too, about how often what I haven’t seen before gets automatically dismissed by my brain as non-essential because I relied on the part of thinking that makes instantaneous generalizations and assumptions and chooses to categorize things, as soon as it decides the new thing doesn’t pose a threat.
While this rarely makes, in real life, the stuff of horror stories, as much as I like a rollicking scary tale at times, I am more concerned when I begin to wonder just how many things this autopilot state of mine makes me miss. Have I bypassed grand opportunities through lack of attention? Undoubtedly. Has my life been different than it could have been had I been more deliberate and thoughtful and thorough? Certainly. Are there people I’ve met whom I never got to know as well as I should have done, never appreciated as deeply as they deserved, never enjoyed the benefits of learning from them or being made better by a real relationship with them? That is unquestionably the hard truth.
Will I be smarter, moving forward, because I paused to ask myself these questions? That, my friends, definitely remains to be seen. I like to think that I’m teachable, but I know I’m also drawn to the easy path in life and often distracted by non-essentials when I should at least be watching where I step, so I’ll make no promises. If I do, however, happen upon any new and delightful things or, especially, people and recognize greater value than a passing glance would have registered, then I won’t consider myself beyond rescue in this regard. Plus, I might find in them the material for some fantastic fiction later on, if I’m lucky.
There’s Always Room for Silliness
The Wriggling Jellybaggle
The Wriggling Jellybaggle and his relatives all laugh
at their own selves, each other, and at each faux pas and gaffe;
at funny things, ridiculous and silly things, and too,
at serious and sober stuff and fretful folk like you;
if you think you’re too dignified to snicker, laugh, and giggle,
you obviously haven’t seen a Jellybaggle wriggle;
and, furthermore, if you have failed to join the goofy gaggle
and goggle and guffaw a bit, your average Jellybaggle
would pity you, at best a fool, at worst, a stubborn stinker,
too stupid to enjoy yourself and thump your sullen thinker
with just the touch of tickling that takes the harm and haggle
out of your life, when you could be a Wriggling Jellybaggle.
A Highly Troubling Scenario
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Expensive Tastes
My magpie nature challenges me. I don’t see any particular inherent problem with being attracted to shiny objects or distracted by what sparkles and catches my wandering, curious, childlike attention. Most of the time, anyway. But when it comes to how I respond to those attractions and distractions, I think I’m pretty weak-willed. I’m easily enchanted by the handsome and impressive, the glimmering and magical Stuff that catches my eye.
What is complicated is not that I like such things, nor even that I waste many a waking hour on admiring them. It’s when I covet them. When I spend resources more precious than my pining glances on them. When I fill up space in my home, my bank account, or my heart with them that would be far better spent on more substantial things. Love. Sharing. Living.
I hope that recognizing the flimsy character of such tinfoil treasures as most Things are is at least a healthy step toward not letting myself be led too far astray by them. But there is always danger in admiring any sort of tempting prettiness. My inventory of belongings is proof enough, especially when I go about tidying the house and come to the end of the day with boxes or bags full of books, clothes, kitchenwares, electronic devices, decorative objects, or any other kind of trinkets that are no longer so shiny and have fallen not only out of my favor but completely off my memory’s radar. Perhaps what I need to do is to train myself to look at such tempting collectibles as catch my eye with a magical pair of glasses that allows me to see how short their lifespan of use and pleasure will be, and how little the return on time, money, and energy I spend on them can possibly amount to in real terms. My lifetime’s garage sale value must be worlds smaller than what I invested to amass all of the frivolous wonders that ended up in it.
…What was I saying there? I just happened to look out the window as a dazzling butterfly tumbled past, and of course I had to follow it, and then that made me notice something red and glittery off in the distance…
Art-Colored Glasses 