Yar

May 23rd, 2006General0 comments

I’m still learning to decide which is good news to share and which is good news to keep secret to myself (because it’s more fun that way).

When I was a kid I loved hearing good news because it disproved the existence of bad news. Good news takes up the physical space where bad news may possibly metastisize. Kind of like positive matter taking up room that would normally be stolen by antimatter.

I worried a lot when I was a kid, especially about nuclear war. Reagan kept steering the country into headlong confrontation with the USSR, paid for on credit; the night he bombed Libya I was sure a hammer-and-sickle-painted bomb would crash through my bedroom ceiling. (Funny how Gaddaffi is now Mr. Friendly.)

So good news is pretty good to hear, although I’m much less of a downer now that I’m an adult.

And I can stand to hear bad news without clapping my hands over my ears and yelling LA LA LA LA, unlike the current administration. But it’s good to accentuate the positive.

Funny thing about the word “metastisize” -

I was talking to our good friend Joel of the Fountain [ Jeanie's terminology for him. -- Ed.] a few weeks ago when I was in New York — specifically about how I get my ideas.

“So when an idea metasti-…” I stopped myself; backtracked, “Develops in my head -“

Joel laughed. “I like that you used that term.”

Thinking about it, these ideas do metastisize in my head. They appear, become functional, then little bits of them tear off and flow through my bloodstream, begin to grow upon the other parts of my mentals. At that point I have to do something about them.