Sheer Silliness

There are not many people in this world who bring me the brand of laughter that makes me nearly cry. Yesterday was lovely. I had been battling a migraine (still am) for days, had taken two Maxalts, and was resigned to the prospect that I would simply have to endure the pain because it had a foothold on me. Nonetheless, I decided on a whim to go to The Corridor, semi-migraine in tow, and just write or draw or whatever.

Sib was present and it was good to see him. It was Friday, and the mood was generally relaxed and relieved all-around. He was going to go home to shower, but one beer (pear cider for me) after another later, we amassed some semblance of inebriation, helped along with some other factors. We got to talking about many different things – all of which are always very interesting and sometimes unusual subjects, and sometimes the actual fact of a matter is so true that it becomes funny.

The biggest bang of our discussions was about how many people erroneously label the moon as having “zero gravity.” I remember having asked this question in my Physics class because in my mind, I viewed the moonwalk as evidence of gravity, despite the light weight (pull/force) on the moon; astronauts did always seem to land back onto the surface. My professor informed me that while there is less gravity on the moon, gravity definitely exists. That part I knew. There is a gravity well that keeps the moon tethered to the earth, and the earth tethered to the sun, etc.

It started to get very strange and hilarious when Sib pointed out the error of “experts’” postulations of “zero gravity” on the moon and explained to me that he had told the experts that if there was “zero” or “no” gravity, the moon would simply “piss off.” There would be only one tide, which means there would be no tide really, and people could cross vast expanses of the ocean and return relatively quickly, like, “See you in a couple of weeks…”

Up until yesterday, when I thought of the moon, I had a pleasant sort image of it dating back to nursery rhymes and old sayings: the man on the moon, the cheese in the night sky, cows jumping over it, the smiling face of the moon seen in lots of art, and so on. The thought of the moon “pissing off” on account of there being zero gravity sent me on a lengthy laughing spree. But it is true. If the moon was “zero gravity,” then it would whiz on past the earth and keep moving forward at its own velocity relatively quickly, like, “Hello, good-bye.” In space, I think, without gravity, objects continue to travel in their trajectories unless something gets in its path, and then… well, objects still collide with tremendous force. I was also thinking that if the moon didn’t whiz by, but instead continued on a trajectory (in its zero gravity state) and the earth was in the way, there’d be no time to say, “Excuse me…” That would be that.

And, if that hadn’t been a big enough lengthy bit of laughter, there was already the precursor in play of something that struck me dumb silly: “A camel is a horse designed by a committee.” I had to ask Sib to repeat his comment, and then wrote it down. Immediately I broke out into laughter and couldn’t stop laughing. Camels are willful creatures, don’t do what you tell them to when you want them to do something, spit at you, are cantankerous, and regardless of whether or not they have one hump or two, they are still not horses. Or, could camels simply be “horses in drag”?

Finally, somewhere between all this laughter, we got into a discussion about mediocrity. I am passionately against mediocrity, or settling for anything less than one’s highest aspirations. I know that things get in the way of plans unfolding properly, but life is meant to be lived, and to be lived with full participation within it. Sib said something that, at the time, sounded hilariously apropos (to which I also laughed lengthily) but was actually very true. He said, “The height of mediocrity is ultra individualism.”

With all this laughter going on, people wanted in on the joke, but the problem was that there really wasn’t any joke. One person asked if we were talking about him while I was laughing uncontrollably. I’m sure I looked foolish, but sometimes the truth can be awfully hilarious. We would have had to retrace the premise of zero gravity on the moon and explain why it cannot be so, and then all of the sudden, it would have become un-funny. It’s priceless.