Imagine if the people behind “Everybody Poops” followed it up with “Everybody Masturbates”. With colorful pictures of how various animals masturbate.

I’d be all for it, myself. After all, it’s true, and you would be starting the little ones off with a healthy understanding of their own sexuality.

And some valuable hints as to how to do it themselves, of course.

But I bet even Scandinavian countries would balk at THAT. More’s the pity.

After all, I started masturbating at that age, and I turned out FINE.

Some people make it to college without having figured it out! Can you imagine? All that time wasted when they could have been having fun.

Get them started right, I say.

Such tragedies could easily be prevented.

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I wonder if, to someone from a region where they use chopstick, watching us Westerners eat with our forks, knives, and spoons looks like some sort bizarre and elaborate magic act.

Or does it look more like an industrial job? Like we’re eating with carpentry tools.

And as an ignorant Westerner, I must confess that a little part of me wants to know if they ever think, “You know, that looks a heck of a lot easier. Why am I eating with sticks? And how is that restricting my diet without me even knowing?”.

Myself, like I said here before, I am a Level 1 chopsticks user. I can get the sushi rolls into my mouth and on a good day same with the teriyaki.

But eating rice with chopsticks is beyond me.

Now I am imagining some young Asian on a trip to America having eaten their first meal with Western utensils, sitting there questioning everything.

This leading to them drunk on a rooftop screaming, “WHY DO WE EAT WITH STICKS!?!” until the cops show up.

I have a fun mind.

---

I’ve been listening to a lot of Patton Oswalt standup lately, and so it follows naturally that I have also been analyzing it.

It’s not like I have a choice. I analyze everything, all the time. But ESPECIALLY comedy.

So I have been honing in on exactly what his gift is. Because he’s hilarious and totally unique and that fascinates me.

And I think his gift is bitterness. But a really refined and carefully applied bitterness.

It’s like he has laser focused in on the exact kind of bitterness that makes people laugh. It’s like Seinfeld’s observational comedy only instead of powered by Seinfeld’s obsessive nature, it’s powered by Oswalt’s deep well of bitterness at the world that made him this tiny weird looking fat dude.

And I can dig it. I have loads of bitterness too, though obviously not about being small.

I’m freaking huuuuuuuge.

Of course, all the bitterness in the world won’t make you funny without the verbal and performing skills to make it work, and I think Patton Oswalt’s other secret is his gift for phrasing things in the exact right way to connect with the bitterness in all of us.

Plus there is a backing of cheerfulness behind the bitterness. He never seems particularly mad or depressed about these things. In fact, he uses a tone of sarcastic cheerfulness that really makes the whole thing work.

And that’s how Patton Oswalt works. The End.

More after the break,.

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Let me make one thing clear

I’m not the one skipping supper so he doesn’t have to walk to the kitchen and back because getting water from the en suite damn near killed him^[1], you are!

And while we’re at it, you really need to clean up around here.

This place makes a long neglected pigsty look clean and tidy.

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‘Did the appointment with Doctor Chao today.

It went…. okay, I guess.

He did a cursory amount of examination then sent in a req to the CAT scan unit at the Hospital for me to get a CAT scan of my lower spine and back to see if my problems stem from something going fuckwise on the neuro-spinal level.

So that’s progress, I suppose. Things are moving forward. The Hospital will call me soon in order to book an appointment for the scan.

This is old hat to me now. I’ve already had at least half a dozen of the things during various trips to the ER now, so they are no big deal.

I already know that I don’t react strongly to the tracer dye they inject. I get, at most, a very mild warming sensation and that’s it.

And the “tunnel” of the scanner is not long or closed in enough to trigger my claustrophobia, knock on wood, so no need for an Atavan.

One might have been nice, of course. The effects of the ones they gave me for my eye operations and heart procedures were fairly pleasant.

Although that one time, the withdrawal made me SUCH a dick. It was after the stents were put in and I in my incoherent fog and with the memory of being in a lovely warm place with no anxiety fresh in my now headaching mind, I became convinced that something injurious to my health was going to happen and I berated the dear sweet (and hyper-competent) nurse over it.

I feel pretty bad about that, but I was not myself.

Anyhow, so yeah, glad I will be getting the CAT scan.

But pissed off at myself for forgetting the all-important step of asking Doctor Chao if he could give me something for the pain.

Not looking to get rid of all the pain because that’s an important message from my body and I don’t want to be able to totally ignore it and walk too far and bust something.

But a little something to dull the pain would have been nice.

Oh well. The “funny” thing about my problem is that most of the time, it is no big deal.

It’s only when I walk that it becomes clear how much trouble I am in.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.