Refracted Neurons

"Do you have a spork?" "No, why would I have a spork?"  "You grew up in a military town."  "What?!"

As some of you may already well know, I am not afraid of climbing 50' ladders, catching spiders, or holding snakes. What freaks me out is clowns. I have a very mild form of coulrophobia that doesn't really cause me any problems outside of all my skin trying to crawl off my body.  That, and I scare my boyfriend by screaming everytime I see a giant clown billboard (there's one up north on 99, and one lurking around Fremont). Anyway, I was doing a training last week and one of my "students" asked me point blank, "Were you ever a clown?" I was  horrified .  I have always been afraid of clowns.  Some times that fear extends to all mimes (even ones without face paint), giant stuffed animals, and weird things like cowboy santas (one attacked me with a platic knife once).  Whenever I see someone climbing an imaginary rope, it just freaks me out. A few month's ago, I met Saru's grandfather.  He put his arm around me and said, "You know, I'm

"Is he animated?  Does he talk with his hands?" "No, he talks with his feet."

Seen on a bumper sticker: "Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?"

A couple of weeks ago my boyfriend won the Covey 5K.  I was waiting by the finishline along with some old men, dogs, small children, the announcer, and three Seahawks Cheerleaders.  As my boyfriend crossed the finishline, he looked at me and blew me a kiss.  The announcer said, "Here's our first 5K finisher . . . and he blows a kiss to the Seagals!"  "What?!" I said, "No!  Not the Seagals!  Me!  He blows a kiss at me!"

Billy Collins makes me jump up and down.  This is from his book Nine Horses, called "Poetry": "Let the playwright with her torn cardigan and a dog curled on the rug move the characters from the wings of the stage to face the many-eyed darkness of the house. Poetry is no place for that. We have enough to do complaining about the price of tobacco, passing the dripping ladle, and singing songs to a bird in a cage. We are busy doing nothing- and all we need for that is an afternoon, a rowboat under a blue sky, and maybe a man fishing from a stone bridge, or, better still, nobody on that bridge at all."

With the economic downturn and a fair share of change and so on, I've been really craving rainbows and unicorns.  So I was delighted by the turn of events that occured last weekend.  I was sitting in a greek restaurant in Fremont eating dolmades, when I started to hear what sounded like a marching band. Well, it was a marching band.  About 15 or so people carrying an array of instruments.  They were dressed carnivalesque, one wore a monkey mask, and their playing was actually rather good (if you happen to like that sort of thing).  People were following them, and laughing, and generally having a good time. The woman at a table next to me said, "They must be a bunch of 20-something misfits." Because that's what freaks do apparently.  I should see if they need a majorette.