mimi smartypants
Seriously, though: what's with the penguins?

the economy-sized can of worms

The Time I Got to Pretend I Was He-Man

by mimi smartypants

There was a summer during college when, instead of going home, I stayed in the tiny town where my college was (is) located. I had a very non-demanding campus job and a very non-demanding town job. I stayed on campus, in a big old cooperative house with a lot of mice in the basement.

One day some housemates and I went out to the football stadium to goof around. My college was very small, and our “stadium” was literally a crater in the ground. There were some bleachers, but most spectators just sat on the grass on the hillside and watched the action that way.

Well, the goofing-around possibilities were beyond our wildest dreams. It had been extremely windy the night before and the bleachers had blown down the hillside and were all broken up into pieces. So there was this heap of very, very long (like 20 feet) but very, very lightweight pieces of aluminum, which one could easily pick up and hurl around like Hercules or Clash of the Titans or something. It was awesome.

I was on acid at the time, as were my housemates, as was most of the town that summer, it seemed, but it would have been incredibly cool under any circumstances.

Speaking of drugs, I filled my prescription for anti-malaria pills yesterday, for the India trip. There are a few freaky possible side effects I've read about, like mania, psychosis, strange dreams. The doctor told me not to worry, just to monitor myself for any abnormal thoughts or disordered behavior.

So I have to distinguish between “normal” abnormal thoughts and medication-induced ones now? Doesn't this beg the question somewhat? Does the madwoman know she's mad? Not to mention the fact that scrutinizing oneself for possible disordered behavior is in fact itself a disordered behavior. And so goes the infinite loop.

I did not bring these more abstract questions up with the travel clinic doctor. The man is not paid to discuss epistemology with me.

—mimi smartypants