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January 09, 2003
Small children, Elton John, and acts of sheer lunacy.
“People are … really sick!”
I spent a good portion of my day today with a 4-year old child named John. I would not consider myself a “kid person” per se, but 5 hours of this little boy running rampant in my home in light-up shoes, making screeching noises at my dog, and enthusiastically recounting innumerable and unintelligible stories about events that may or may not have actually taken place – well it was a change of pace to say the least.
I ran straight into a wall the other day and managed to scratch/cut my face. I am a lame-ass.
Over the last few weeks I have become aware of something that I do, that maybe isn’t as normal as I had just always assumed it was. I realized that I tend to personify non-living things, inanimate objects, etc. I give random objects human characteristics all the time, assign genders, even names! My car has a name, a gender, as does my computer, stereo, stuffed animals, blah blah blah. I’ve noticed myself asking people if they’ve named their inanimate objects, or saying things like, “Gene’s computer was talking” and “I was fighting with my bedroom light,” which really makes no sense at all. I don’t know where this came from, or why I do this, but I realize it’s something I always have done, since I was a child I guess … and that it is not something that everyone does. Huh. Maybe I do it because then I never really feel alone. It’s not like I *talk* to these objects. Well, not much anyway.
Mike burned me a copy of Elton John’s greatest hits (the most recent, 2-disk release). Folks, I am now officially at maximum Elton capacity. It’s hard to feel too sad when listening to Elton John – although it’s easy to feel slightly less cool.
Ah well, the day is meandering by. Perhaps I can amuse myself by going through other people’s mail looking for white powder… Hmmm. Anthrax, cocaine, whatever.
Posted by kati at January 9, 2003 04:29 PM
Comments
I like that your truck has not only a gender, but a sexual orientation.
The seeming personification of objects was one of my favorite things about Spanish. Or at least, the reflexive tense in Spanish. If you hurt your arm, it's "me duele el brazo," as if the arm itself had intentionally and maliciously injured you. Same with dropping a dish - it's "se rompe el plato" - the dish broke itself. Humans aren't to blame for shit breaking - it's those tricky inanimate onjects.
Posted by: sean at January 9, 2003 05:20 PM
I also like how comfortable my truck is with it's sexual orientation. Who loves kitty?
Posted by: Kati at January 11, 2003 01:31 AM