Deeper Ideas by Kate Strandy

(Inspired by Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy)

Does anyone remember Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy on Saturday Night Live?

They might be more amusing postmortem, but I remember chuckling at them several times during the 90s. I sort of like that kind of thing. I think it's the 15-year-old in me.


While in the kitchen, I got the idea/inspiration for my Deeper Ideas.


Please scroll and read it aloud to yourself.

Deeper Ideas

by Kate Strandy

It must really

suck,

to be a bloodhound.

Because all the time

you'd smell everything,

like rotten food,

stinky farts,

and bad

body odor.

Is there such thing 

as good 




body odor?

It's probably just

how somebody smells

if it isn't bad.

But you can't smell yourself...

if it's bad.

Can you?

But bloodhounds man...

they can smell stuff

like fleas can jump

and

ants 




can lift.

But not my aunt Gladys

she has arthritis.

Pseudo-Insomnia

I woke up over three hours ago at 4:31am.

4:31am

For no good reason.

With no 6am call time, early-morning romp, or otherwise worthy (albeit annoying in the case of the 6am call) reason to wake up, 4:30 is just, well, silly and frustrating to this fem-bot.

This happens from time to time for me. Nowadays, probably once every 6 months if that. It used to be more frequent.

I take this as a good sign. A sign that I'm either some combination or all of the following:

• Healthier physically, likely due to better nutrition and physical fitness 
• More peaceful, a happy thought indeed, as I recall more restlessness in the past (thankfully in the past)
• Happier in my relationship, because if memory serves, a good percentage of my sleepless nights in the past were due to lying next to an ultimately doomed (albeit a mostly cordial & civilized death) bedmate and/or just waking up wondering what the fuck about whatever relationship was troubling me at the time...
• More spiritually...connected (or something). This one surpasses even the aforementioned past relationship woes and general restlessness, and is the hardest to describe, quantify and understand. Let me 'splain. There is too much. Let me sum up. Basically, I suspect I sleep better lately because I've connected more deeply* with the non-physical.

(*I use the words "more deeply" because to think that I was ever not connected would be a gross oversight. We are always connected it is only thinking we're not that creates the illusion that we can be disconnected from the essence of which all things are made of and a part of.)

So one or more of the above reasons has helped me, tremendously, in sleeping better. None were sought-out or had as a means to the end of sleeping better, it's just a happy side-effect. But tonight, I awoke at 4:30am. 

Why? Not sure yet. What did I do? I read a few pages from two of the books I'm in the midst of reading. Sometimes I read one book at a time; right now I'm reading four simultaneously. Library due dates and my own diffused attention have caused this book-polygamy. My two favorites of the four and my bedfellows of this morning were Bite Me and The Four-Hour Work Week.

After reading, I decided to transcribe the last chapter of the book. The. Book. 

What Women Never Tell You

It's a relationship book about all the things women never tell men, but that are vitally important and that men desperately want to know about how to have more success and better relationships with women. Strong enough for a man, but pH balanced for a woman.

Marcus and I are writing this book together, but I type like a cheeta, and he types like a panda...a panda with one hand full of eucalyptus leaves. So I've assigned myself the typing portion, and we both record the copy for each chapter (which we completed a few months ago).

But let me reiterate. I typed the LAST CHAPTER of What Women Never Tell You just before I started writing this blog for all of you. 

We still have to edit. Of course. And we still need a publisher, though we'll self-publish if necessary until we get a publisher and are on the New York Times Bestseller List.

But I must admit, it feels...odd

Relieved, but also uncertain. Did I really just finish my first book? 

Maybe that's what caused my insomnia today. Something in me wanted to get up and get it done. So, that's what I did.

I thought there'd be more fanfare and fireworks. But right now I'd settle for some more sleep.

Also, for anyone wondering about my marked absence from the blogosphere for the past several months, my writing energy that was reserved in the past for blogging went towards finishing this book. Hopefully I'll be back blogging away to all of you more frequently. But we may also do a What Women Never Tell You blog and we also may start working on our second book. We'll see. But it is good to be back and I hope you've missed me as much as I've missed all of you, and writing for all of you...this kind of writing - as it's more reflective and cathartic than What Women Never Tell You writing.

Though I am very pleased that I just finished the first full draft of my first book. Maybe there'll be fireworks and fanfare when we really finish it - as in the final edit is done and we send it to the printer. Maybe when we get it back from the printer then we'll have a real party.

Ah, hell. How about I just be happy with this stage of accomplishment.

That's better.

I'm feeling kind of sleepy.

In-The-Bag Kind Of Love

A few years ago, I was watching the movie The U.S. vs. John Lennon and I said to my friend Lisa, who was sitting next to me on the couch, "I want an in-the-bag kind of love."

For those of you who haven't seen the movie, you should. Besides the political tilt obvious from the title, there is a lot of John and Yoko in the film. A lot.

No matter what you think about Yoko and the blame often tossed at her for breaking up the band, the footage of the two of them in the movie makes it clear to me... they were really, truly in love.

And it's the kind of love where you have fun doing anything, or nothing with that person. Normally I'd kind of gag at that kind of description, because although I'm a romantic at heart, and am definitely guilty of being a bit sentimental, I also have a sarcastic side. Couple that with a low tolerance for cheesiness and overly saccharin sentimentality that is so much more common among celebrities and in Los Angeles generally, than in-the-bag kind of love, and you'll find me rolling my eyes at people describing their love as special and unique (case & point JLo from a few years back talking about her relationship with Ben Affleck...they're still together, right? Oh, wait.)

But John and Yoko never really described their love as special, they just were in it.

You see, there's this scene where John and Yoko do an interview from a bag. Sort of. It's more of a cotton sheet that covers both of them, but they appear to be in a bag. Anyway, some reason is given for why they're doing this and it's something about wanting to do the interview without actually being seen. It's silly and probably got missed by most viewers. But I found it... significant in that these two were having such a good time together, were so in love that they'd basically hang out under a sheet for an interview...just because. Maybe they were tired of the press, maybe they were tired of how they were depicted, but they just hung out in a bag together, because they felt like it and it felt right.

Remember, this occurred to me a few years ago, Hopefully my recall is close to the mark.

At the time, I truly don't remember who I was dating. I'm pretty certain I was single and I might have had a few guys I was interested in, but no one that would've likely gone in-the-bag with me. They all would've wanted to know why, specifically, we were doing it and they'd probably grow very impatient with the whole thing. I, in turn, would've grown impatient with them and the whole thing. Very anti-in-the-bag.

So fast forward to now.

For almost two years, I've had an In-the-bag kind of love.

Funny thing is, when Marcus and I met and started hanging out, I'd forgotten all about this. It wasn't as though I were actively looking for an in-the-bag kind of love, it just sort of found me. (My friends can attest that I didn't even know Marcus and I were dating - he was so stealth and ninja about it - I only realized we were together when it was too late and I was already in too deep or, as I realize now, in-the-bag.)

For some reason I remembered all of this last night and I told Marcus about it. Actually what I said was, "we have an in-the-bag kind of love." And he said, "yeah, we do."

I reminded him about the movie and that scene. He laughed and said, "yeah, I'd hang out in a bag with you and do interviews."

Thing is, I already knew that he would.