Epic Banality

Since K.L. and I started hanging out on a regular basis, we’ve had a sort of war of words going on. She pronounces a number of words in a manner I find peculiar and, apparently, I pronounce some works “wrong” as far as she’s concerned. Tonight, we had dinner at Duke’s Chowder House with her parents (which seemed to go well, by the way) both Seattle Brother and her dad got some kind of gnocchi dish. Her brother botched the word to start saying noa-chie and then K.L. corrected him, pronouncing the word as noa-kie. I interjected that it wasn’t pronounced that way either and pronounced it properly with nyah-kie. As always this turned into some kind of ridiculous debate that was to be settled later. Upon returning back to the place we’re staying, I headed over to the handy dandy Merriam-Webster dictionary which has an audio sample of the proper pronunciation.

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So, there is a sort of internet truth out there that I have been witness to tonight: What has been seen, cannot be unseen. (Please refer to fig. 1 for a visual example of this truth.)

It began with Boas and me discussing nothing of importance, as we tend to do after a few rounds of Dawn of War. I was talking about The Dark Knight and then wondered if Iron Man was still showing at any theater around here. It wasn’t, but over the course of looking over movies I started reading reviews of the latest work by the man responsible for retroactively raping my childhood. I saw a few gave it an “F” and as such, I had to read those.

I found this gem by Roger Ebert while reading. This quote, in particular is the stuff legends are made of:

You know you’re in trouble when the most interesting new character is Jabba the Hutt’s uncle. The big revelation is that Jabba has an infant to be kidnapped. The big discovery is that Hutts look like that when born, only smaller. The question is, who is Jabba’s wife? The puzzle is, how do Hutts copulate? Like snails, I speculate. If you don’t know how snails do it, let’s not even go there. The last thing this movie needs is a Jabba the Hutt sex scene.

Unfortunately, Boas decided that I really needed to know precisely how snails copulated, so he sent me a link to some really weird dramatic interpretation on the subject, Green Porno. Click “now showing” and watch. It’s office safe too, as long as the people around you won’t die if they hear the word “anus.” Don’t worry, while it will burn an image in your mind, it’s no Goatse. It’s more weird than anything else.

So, now I know how snails do it. Earthworms too. What has been seen, cannot be unseen.

I’ve been in a number of relationships over the course of my 28 years—about 10 of which have been spent inside the confines of a romantic affair. During the course of such things, I’ve been called by many terms of endearment and been described in many ways. Before K.L. I would describe most of these as traditional. There was honey and dear and even darling from time to time. I was cute and I was a dork. I was a lot of things, some so dripping with sap it makes me sick to think about them. Even the worst of those were still variations on what most people would consider typical.

The rules have changed.

Once I was sweetie and now I am… catfish. That’s right, catfish. Why? Apparently, when I lay down, I’m like a catfish at the bottom of a river or a lake or something similar. That is, of course, unless I’m laying on top of K.L. in some manner at which time I become “like a cod” instead since codfish swim higher than catfish typically do. My back is like a fish fillet or something like that. I don’t really know since I make little attempt to make sense of K.L.’s statements on this subject.

The fun doesn’t stop there. Various parts of my body have their own comparisons that have nothing to do with anything fishy. In fact, it’s generally poultry of some sort. My hands are like chicken wings as are my arms as a whole. My finger tips escape the chicken theme and are regarded as grapes. I also seem to have a pair of turkey legs too. There was also one occasion where I was described as looking like a cow when I had my head looking over a pillow at her.

This isn’t normal. This isn’t to say I’m in search of normal but K.L., as always, insists that anything she does is typical and that there are probably many other people out there that share in her particular eccentricities. There aren’t, and I mean to say that definitively.

Every Wednesday the gang—which generally includes Guinness, Voltron, Hotelie, Soldier and K.L.—and I head to our favorite pub, Fadó for some drinks, dinner and a furious round of pub quiz. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, people form teams at their respective tables and compete for a number of rounds of trivial. At the end of the night the team with the most points wins some kind of award. At Fadó first place gets a $50.00 gift certificate and there are prizes for second and third as well. We’ve been at this “traditionally” for about six or seven weeks. We’ve never managed to win and even when we’re in the race, the last round always proves fatal. In the last round the points are doubled and we always seem to fare poorly.

Tonight was different. Tonight, even though it required some morally flexible means, we emerged victorious. The night began with naming our team which is given a theme each time. The theme for tonight was a made up 80s dance move. We thought that “The Blumpkin” had a nice ring to it. Over the course of the match we answered the questions pretty well, but for that extra added push in the last round we effectively bribed one of the waitresses for the answers. (She was a hot waitress according to K.L., and I have to agree. Incidentally, so does Guinness.) Also, I stole one answer (the number of stars on the Australian flag) from K.L.’s Blackberry. So, we’ve got unclean hands now. We also have a $50.00 gift certificate.

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Today marks two months since K.L. and I managed to solidify the particular parameters of our association. The story is short and amusing.

I had been invited to a party that a buddy of mine was putting on and I basically asked K.L. to be my date. We were together for most of the party and I can’t count the number of times someone asked me, “So, is that your girlfriend?” This question posed a problem for me and revealed the most sensitive spot in a budding relationship. If I answered yes that would be presumptive but I didn’t want to say no in a manner that was like, “Definitely not!” So I did a lot of fudging and humming and ha-ing. K.L. recounted as recently as last night how amused she was that I was being “grilled” and she was being left alone concerning the matter.

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If I was to say that K.L. was weird, she’d be the first to insist that was not the case. She’d say, “I’m original, not weird. I can’t be weird because I’m normal.” Her mother agrees with her assessment, though I have some feeling if a vote were taken among those who know her, the consensus would favor my evaluation. She’s weird, plain and simple. Allow me to submit an example that took place last night.

K.L. came over to my place, as has become customary, and we simply laid down in bed together. It wasn’t long before she curled up and rested her head on my stomach so the back of her head was facing me. So far, so good. This is a typical position for two people who interact in a romantic capacity. Things became decidedly abnormal when she said, without looking back, “I like stomachs. They make so many interesting noises.” I don’t remember the exact order of events that followed but I can say that I said that she was a weirdo, she asked me if I could “feel it” in reference to the noises that were being made, commented on liking what stomachs “said” and when I got up a little later I suggested we change positions so I could listen. (Yes, I get that I’m weird too, but I make no arguments to the contrary.)

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