Literary Yard

Search for meaning

By: S.CS

QUESTIONING

Why do they call it a restroom anyway? I can’t remember the last time i went there to rest. Possibly never.

And are you one of those people who keeps a stack of books in there so you can read while doing a #2? I don’t get that. I can’t read when my pants are down around my ankles and certain bodily activities are taking place. I guess I’m just not a multi-tasker. I one knew a guy who ate on the can.

Speaking of that, what about the people who read while walking. This doesn’t seem right to me. I mean who are these people? I like to read and I like to walk. I don’t so much like to read and walk, or so I assume. Honestly, I haven’t even tried it. It just seems unsafe and illogical to me.

Of course the modern version of this is texting while driving. I read somewhere that a study showed that driving while texting was equivalent to driving after 3.5 drinks. Might as well go have a few martinis and skip the texting.

How about those people who operate their smartphones with one hand, and quickly? That’s like a circus act to me. My fat fingers can barely manage as it is, but my thumbs don’t stand a chance. No, that won’t be happening.

I am proud to say that i do Swype, though. Now that is a thing of beauty and I’m pretty good at it. When I’m feeling good, I’m a Swype monster. But when I’m off, say because I’m tired or drugged or something, I can’t get any words right. I attempt to Swype “Afghanistan,” and there on the phone before me is “flabbergasted,” or some such thing. Those days, i either throw my phone at the wall or i go back to my essential form: One fat finger typing.

I really am astounded at am the things we can do with a smart phone. My life is wrapped around my Samsung phone now If you take away my phone now, I’m like a caveman, wandering lost in the wilderness. I dropped my phone recently, just a little drop really, and the screen went blank. In Nicaragua, where I live now, replacement technology doesn’t come easily. There are very few places to buy high technology items. Medium-low is sometimes possible. And you don’t dare use the postal service. It is just an unstated fact that you don’t do it. I’m not sure they actually have a postal system.

At any rate, without a smart phone I didn’t know when to get up, what to do, who to contact, how to contact them, where to go, how to get there … and really anything. I just grunted and groaned, wandered aimlessly, and did plenty of extra sleeping.

Nicaragua is different in many ways. Addresses are terribly amusing, and only occasionally helpful. A typical address might be (translated to English)

Jose Goldbart
A half a block north of the
corner chicken rotisserie place,
which is two blocks west of
where the original mortuary
used to be, the 3rd house on
the right, Lilac colored.
Leon, Nicaragua 11002

I am not joking. They have very few street names and no house numbers here. And the town might be 500 years old. You’d think that would be long enough to work out a better system. But suddenly you like it. “Who needs real addresses. This is cool,” he says. And who needs Amazon Prime? Just when i thought I couldn’t live without it i’m doing fine. Thank you.

Speaking of Nicaragua, cars use their horns for everything here. They use then to say, “Hi.” They use them to say, “Bye.” They use them to warn you that they’re coming, they use them to tell you that they’ve past. They use them to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, saint’s days, sports team victories, you name it. And they don’t just tap the horn. They lean on it. A good 5 second blast. I mean, these are the kinds of honks that cause road rage in the states. These are the honks that cause one to challenge another to a cage fight back home.

While we’re on the topic of cage fighting, wha’ the …? What is the cage for? When i was a kid it was “PROFESIONAL WRESTLING” or nothing. And they’d have none of this cage business. One of the best moves was the throw-the-other-guy-from-the-ring move. You can’t do that with cage fighting. Cage fighting promises to be very exciting, but from what I’ve seen, it is just two guys almost naked and hugging each other in various positions.

I could go to a porn movie if I wanted that kind of action. I am so grateful that we live in a time when most gays and lesbians feel like they can come out in most developed countries. It broke my heart to lose friends to AIDS in the 80s, and know why their families weren’t there to help ease then across and say goodbye. It does get confusing though. I was fine until they added the Q: LGBTQ. What is the Q for? What haven’t we covered? I haven’t asked and I haven’t Googled this, but I think that the Q is for Questioning. And that makes sense. If any self-categorizing is confusing, I imagine that figuring out that you may not be straight, and trying to figure out just what kind of not-straight you are–that might call for a weigh station category of some sort.

Hell, I’m Q! Not with regard to gender ID, but with just about everything else. There is a lot of figuring out to be done. It is kind of a life process. And just when you think you’re making progress, a narcissistic freak show named Trump gets elected to POTUS. Now the size of that Q is immeasurable. I’ll be Qing frequently and deeply for a long time to come.

You know, I’m feeling overwhelmed. I think I need to rest a spell. Does anyone happen to know where a nice, especially cozy restroom might be? If you need me I’ll be there for about four years.

 

Tagged:

Leave a Reply

Related Posts