Um, Disturbing...

Is anyone else bothered by the fact that, for some reason, one of the Google ad links on my blog today was for Satan Worship? Right next to "Worship Songs"? Definitely threw me for a moment or more.

So, yesterday I was talking to a friend of mine who demanded that I tell the world what it's like to live my life for a day. I can do nothing but comply.

Now, he wasn't talking about what it's like to be a graduate student at Notre Dame, or adjunct faculty at an underfunded community college. He wasn't even really wondering about what it's like to have stolen the affections of someone else's house cat to the point that he jumps off his owner's lap to see me when I walk in the house. No, he (friend, not house cat) was talking about what it's like to experience my life.

It is, in one word, bewildering. I think, perhaps, examples are the best way to illustrate this point.

Classic Example No.1: The Prosthetic Leg
Imagine that you're teaching, trying to help your class learn to write persuasive essays. You think the best way to do this is to use a very ridiculous example, to show that ANYTHING can be turned into a persuasive essay. So you come up with a topic: prosthetic legs. So farfetched, it's gotta work. Your argument: that somehow peg legs are better than the current trend of realistic prosthetics. You are quite proud of yourself, and turn to the whiteboard to start outlining your supports: the continued popularity of Captain Ahab, the fiduciary benefits of single shoe purchasing, and the fact that you'd be everyready for Pirate Day. It is then that you hear the first of the snickering. Suddenly you are outside your body, peering around the room at the same time you're writing these things. A nanosecond later, your out-of-body eyes land on a student who until this moment was residing only in your peripheral vision. And you realize that this student has a prosthetic leg. Both your body and out-of-body self suddenly freeze, including pulse and breathing. You whip yourself around and watch yourself hurry to apologize, at the same time realizing that you have just lost any and all authority previously gained.

At this most inoportune of moments, your cell phone, which you have set to buzz when it's time for the class to break, starts dancing around on the desk. It is not time to break. It is not even close to breaktime. No, you are receiving a call from your brother, who you find out later via voicemail was only calling to ask about the Michigan game. Strike two. Try to regain ground. Die a little on the inside.

Classic Example No.2: Nicholas Says Hello
You are sitting in choir at the end of rehearsal, listening to a wide array of announcements, and something--we no longer know what--pops into your head as a good thing to say. You raise your hand, but in the half second between the time that Steve says your name and the time that it's time to speak, you forget completely what you were going to say. (You think now that maybe it was about listening to Karen; you're not entirely sure.) But you have the floor--you have asked for it, and must say something. So you say the first thing that comes to mind, since the last announcement had something to do with tenors: "Our favorite tenor, Nicholas, is moved into Evanston and says hi." Moments later you relize that you will have to call Nicholas now and tell him you've told the choir he said hi, just in case someone calls to say hi back; if you don't warn him, and the someone does call, he will have no idea what's going on and your idiot lie will be discovered. Nicholas laughs at you when you call.

Now imagine that things like this, in varying degrees of duh happen to you multiple times daily. You just stand there, watching yourself trip off the edge of the sidewalk and grin like an idiot because we all know how stupid you looked trying to make it look nonaccidental. Like someone would purposefully trip off the sidewalk. You hear yourself saying bizarro things, the whole time mentally chanting shutup! shutupshutupshutup! just stop talking now. or now. or now. Knowing the entire time that the only way you're going to stop talking is if you suddenly drop dead, burst into flame, or are delivered an open-hand slap to the face. At the end of every day I am exhausted by the simple act of existing within myself, and need those six hours of Animal Planet to recuperate.

The bonus to the whole thing is, of course, that much of the time this existence is ridiculously funny to the outside world. You tell your friends about it, and they laugh. A lot. So it's not so bad, after all. In fact, it's a pretty sweet life. Certainly wouldn't trade it for a peg leg, no matter how much money I could save on shoes.

So...now you know. You should also know that I have somehow lost one of the batteries in the remote, so the TV, until I stop blogging, is stuck on BET After Dark...does anyone else think it's a little funky that Nicole Richie is featured as the love interest in her father's new music video, "I Call It Love"? I mean, they separate him very clearly from the male who is her love interest, but it's still kind of sketch. Oh well. Lionel still has the sweet pipes that taught us about "Dancing on the Ceiling," so I may just go out and get the new CD. By that I of course mean download it from iTunes. Whatever.

For now, just remember that I am once, twice, three times a lady. And that, for me, we're talking about three different people.

Song of the Moment: "Night Train"~Lionel Richie