Don't Pee on the Worm

Wow. A blog chain, it's been ages since I've participated in one of these.

Let's see, Wendy summed up the first posts so beautifully:

"Razib Ahmed posted about life during the economic recession. Then it was Benjamin Solah with the view that nationalism is racism. Then Fresh Hell chimed in from Virginia with a post about racial relations."

And of course, Wendy wrote about covert racism and things people say, little adages, that are spoken in casual conversation. So I'm going to take that idea and run with it. (I sure don't envy Kat Frass who comes after me.)

I love learning proverbs, old sayings and superstitions especially here in Japan where the culture is so different from my own. I've just got to share my favorite one so far.

I was with my in-laws walking through some hills when we came across a worm crossing the path. My mother-in-law takes great pride in teaching me all the things I do not know or understand. She stopped me with a hand across my chest and says:

"Don't pee on it."

Really, how to respond to a comment like that? She then went on to tell me that back in the day little boys would pee on worms and then suddenly their 'members' would swell up and start to painfully itch. I told her first, I'm a girl, and second, I normally didn't relieve myself on animals, big or small. I don't think she was convinced.

That bugged (sweet, sweet pun) me for years. What was the reasoning behind such a superstitian? I was bothered that is until one day I saw a show on TV actually proving that one type of worm shoots out a kind of poison which travels up the urine stream and well, causing swelling and pain.

It's in Japanese (sorry) but here's the explanation. And here's a bunch of people (men) who evidently had this experience. One guy even peed on a frog and had the same thing happen.

"Dude, cut it out."

No moral really. I don't think anyone actually pees on worms. Just, you know, I hate it when my mother-in-law is right.

Here's a list of the entire chain. Kat Frass is up next.


Razib Ahmed

Benjamin Solah

FreshHell

WendyNYC

madderblue

Kat Frass

the Cliterature blog

truelyana

AW Chain Number Twelve

Kate over at Finding Brodie wrote a perfectly hilarious post about writing and why people do it. She talked of sadistic editors and masochistic writers, about how despite low income, a potential for alcoholism and probable depression writers still gotta write.



So while I agree, I thought I'd flip the coin and talk about my own personal demon, why I don't write.



The house has to be clean, the dog walked, and the dishes washed. I usually vacuum, shower, and hang out laundry as well. It's like some great routine that starts the moment my family leaves the house in the morning and lasts up to two hours. Eventually though it does get finished and I can sit down at the computer. However, invariably the phone rings, a cat meows, or an e-mail falls into the box. Yesterday's interruptions included a man going door to door selling bread out of the back of his truck, a nap, and a woman on the phone wanting to sell me underwear -- she said she'd bring it to my house if I was interested.

It's always something.

I find it takes a different kind of concentration to write. When studying I read, jot down notes, re- read. But with writing I mull stuff over, I have that all-powerful 'What If...' forever nipping at my thoughts and steering me into new directions. I hit walls and come back. But what really amazes me is how when things get tough my mind will forever find some errand to save me from the task at hand, did I feed the newts? open the upstairs windows? water the flowers?



Like just now, I look over and see that the dog has climbed the cat tower and is trying to get my attention. Awwww. So I have to find the camera, take a picture, upload it, resize it...



Here are a list of the other participants. In Chain Twelve I hear we're all wearing black and white stripes this time!
Virginia Lee: I Ain't Dead Yet!
Playing With Words
A View from the Waterfront
A Thoughtful Life
Gillian Polack: Food history
So, You Majored in Creative Writing; Now what?
Life in the Middle
Finding Boddie; A Simple Way to Snort Your Breakfast
Kappa No He
awchain

Blog Chain Eleven

Ha ha, no worries there, Virginia! You left me with a veritable plethora of ideas to sift through and choose from. Let's see, Halloween and candy, scary movies and Rupert Grint (who I too think is the most adorable of the bunch, especially when he gets interviewed, yum!). There was "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and smoking, witches and movies that traumatized us as children. That's not all, let's not forget a bit of Anne Rice (A.N. Roquelaure) and erotic sex as well.

I'm tempted, but I'm gonna steer clear of that last one. Instead, watch this, the two elements I'm gonna pick to expand on are Anne Rice and Anne Sexton. Two Annes.

Ever since Amazon.com became my best friend, I've adopted this wonderfully fun and somewhat peculiar habit. I get into certain moods where I want to learn everything there is to know about a certain subject. The complete absence of libraries and bookstores with English written literature invariably sends me to Amazon to browse exactly the way they want me to browse. You know what I'm talking about, the "If you like that, you're gonna love this!" set up. I'm such a sucker.

So one day I think to myself, wonder what it's like to be a sniper. Ten books later and I can tell you all about drop, mil dot scopes and ambient air density.

After that I went through a female-writers-who-committed-suicide phase and bought everything I could on Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Anne Sexton. I came out of that with a healthy respect for Sexton and a stubborn disdain for Plath. Don't get me started.

Once I was feeling left out of the whole goth scene and picked up vampires. Ran through all of Anne Rice's"Interview with the Vampire" series, a few other no name writers, and ended with Bram Stoker's "Dracula". Some other themes I've gone through are: Monty Python and Lewis Carroll, Neil Gaiman and Ernest Shackleton. I thought time management and home schooling were good ideas for awhile and loaded up on books about both. Let's not forget Kafka, Twain, Nabokov, and Vonnegut.

A couple weeks ago I was at a yakitori joint and a friend mentioned how great a new show on TV was. He said it was "Dexter". I just finished that one and am almost done with "Silence of the Lambs", which is better than I would have thought. My finger is just about to click on "Monster: My True Story" and "Zodiac Unmasked". Oh gee, now I'm on an inadvertent "serial killer" kick. The good news is that I have a whole stack of science fiction books I've bought and borrowed and I think that will be just the thing to take the edge off the this current messy, gory phase.

Next up is Shauna Magill. Take it away!



Virtual Wordsmith

(The Blog Formerly Known as) Taosbound

Virginia Lee: I Ain't Dead Yet!

Kappa No He

Playing With Words

A Thoughtful Life

Mad About Kites

Confessions of a Fat Chick

The Death Wizard Chronicles

Food History

A View From The Waterfront


awchain