You know that feeling when you’re showing your son some of the gymnastic stuff you used to do in high school, and right in the middle of your routine on the high bar you realize you’re no longer holding on to the high bar and you’re about 1.39 seconds away from impacting the earth at very weird angle?
Then shortly thereafter you understand why your son has told his friends that you’re the funniest person he knows?
There’s a feeling I get when I look to the west and my spirit is crying for leaving.
I feel like that all the time.
You know that feeling you get when you wake up exactly one minute before your alarm is going to go off, and you know that you have that one minute of peace and quiet before everything goes wacko and you won’t get to rest for a period of many hours?
I feel like that all the time.
You know that scene in Moulin Rouge, where Nicole Kidman is on the trapeze, then suddenly passes out, and there’s a drawn-out moment while she hangs there in equilibrium before falling backwards and hurtling towards the floor?
Yeah, it’s been going like that lately.
You know that feeling you get when you’re sitting alone in your office and Mother Nature strikes like a ninja and you raise one cheek and let a fart that would stop hearts, just as the door opens and several of your cow-orkers walk in?
I’ve felt like that three times in the last couple of weeks. Now nobody comes into my office. See - you can find a silver lining.
Did you ever start massaging your girlfriend’s breasts, and she smiles and gives you a sly look and says “I’ll give you exactly one hour to stop that”?
Well, I time that feel all the way.
You know that feeling you get when you want to put the ring on but this voice keeps saying “No! It’s evil!” and there’s that other voice sayig “Go ahead, put it on!” and the Boromir shows up and says “Gimme the damn Ring or I’ll kick your ASS!” and you say “No way dude!” and you totally put the ring on and become invisible and run the fuck away, laughing, “Ahah! It’s MINE! ALL MINE! POWER! FRIENDS! WEALTH! I’M A HAPPY MIZER! WOHOO!”
I felt like that about an hour ago, but now I’m coming down.
You know that feeling when you’re out on a LRRP in 'Nam and you take your eyes off the trail to show the other corporal the pictures of your girl back home and then you hear a metalic click! from under your right boot?
Yeah. Like that.
Or when you go down into your pal Montressor’s basement to look at his liquor collection, and he casually asks you to try on his new pair of manacles and you do, but then you notice the big pile of bricks and mortar in the corner and see a creepy smile spread across your pal’s face just as you feel your wrists being shakled together, and remember that you didn’t tell anyone where you were going that evening?
Kinda like that.
You know that feeling after you’ve walked into a big cobweb, and you think you’ve gotten all the strands off of you but you’re not sure, and every few seconds you twitch or shudder convinced that some of it is still on you as well as the spider, and you’re certain it’s a black widow who has been biting you all this time and you didn’t know it, so you go around jumping at any little itch or tingle?
All day, every day.
You know that feeling where you fall in the mud and get kicked, in the head, by an iron boot?
Of course you don’t–no one does–that never happens.
You know those evenings where you have to get a lot of work done, but instead you dance around your kitchen to Huey Lewis and the News for hours, and then at 2 AM you finally get things done and you get to bed at 3, and you’re all paranoid you’ll forget something before you get on the plane in the morning, and you set 3 alarms for 6:55, 7:00 and 7:05, respectively, and then you don’t sleep well at all and in a half-sleep state you look at the alarm clock at 6:38 and because you’re still half-asleep you freak out but then the adrenaline wakes you up and you look at the clock and you sigh and the relief allows you to sleep peacefully for all of 17 minutes, and then Alarm Clock #1 goes off and it’s Jimmy Eat World, really loud, and you’re worried that your upstairs neighbor, who is supposed to pick up your mail while you’re gone, will get really pissed at you for waking her up too and won’t do it?
That’s my morning now.
You know that feeling you get when you have just phoned someone and they pick up and you realize that you don’t remember who you called?
There’s that long, awkward moment of silence after their hello where a cold jolt runs down your spine and a trickle of sweat begins to climb down from you temple and your brain vainly attempts to connect the voice to someone, anyone, you might have been meaning to call.
I feel a bit like that.
You know that feeling when you hear three sets of sirens and you’re trying to place them in line with the four exits (Let’s Make A Deal-style), and there’s that moment of hesitation while you take your best guess, only you can’t run in this damn clown suit and you slip on all the blood, fall face-first on the chloroform rag, and the damn cops come bursting in through every door EXCEPT the one you picked and right before you fade out you’re thinking, “Oh no, third time this week…”?
The doctors tell me I’ll stop feeling like that in three to five.
You know that feeling when you take your girlfriend to the carnival and you’ve won her the biggest goofiest stuffed animal on the entire site and you’re carrying it around for her but she’s still not impressed and goads you into getting into a boxing ring even though you’re not really wearing the right shoes but you feel you have to prove you’re tough enough and before you know it a kangaroo wearing silly polka-dot shorts is pummelling the snot out of you and you start to get a bit peeved until you figure out that the kangaroo is always throwing the same combinations and no credible defense so you wind up to knock it’s block off, quite sure that you will succeed, then realize that you’d be hitting a defenseless animal so you put up your gloves, defend and wait for the bell to ring which seemingly takes an eternity and everyone is laughing at you?
Yep.
I tend to be in my own little world, but it’s O.K. beacause they know me in there. - Howie Mandel , I think…
You know that episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” where Mary is supposed to accept an award, but she comes down with an awful cold, and her hair is stringy, and her dress doesn’t fit, and her eyes are puffy, and then she breaks her toe so she can only wear one shoe, and she STILL goes to that damned awards ceremony.
Well, I felt that way today.
You know that feeling you get when it seems like your life can’t possibly get any worse, but then it does and then you think that now your life can’t possibly get any worse, but then it does and then you think that now your life can’t possibly get any worse, but then it does and then you think that now your life can’t possibly get any worse, but then it does and then you think that now your life can’t possibly get any worse, but then it does and then you think that now your life can’t possibly get any worse, but then it does and then you think…
I feel like that a little bit more every day now.
Surely that must be a quote from a movie?
You know that great feeling of contentment you get when you’re covered in your victims’ blood, and their remains have finally been disposed of (except for the bits you haven’t picked out of your teeth yet), and the police have no idea, and the Great Octopus is well pleased with her good and faithful servant?
Just last night.
But right now…you know that uneasy quiet of the mind that descends upon you when you can’t figure out the word you want to use, or you’ve walked into a room and cannot imagine why, and all the voices in your head, even your own, go completely silent as at no other time, as if even internal monologue might disrupt some delicate balance of deeper thought than can consciously be perceived?
Sigh, most of the time…
You know that feeling you get when you have absolutely no idea what that feeling that you get is?
I feel like I should feel that way sometimes.
It is, and don’t call me Shirley.