I met her in South Carolina last week. She was working at a peach stand. She didn’t own the business, but I could tell she was cooking up a surprise purchase of 51% of the company shares. I’d say autumn, January at the latest. Come to think of it, I could also see her swiping a basket of them mother-grabbin’ fuzzies and heading to Canada. She wasn’t as unpredictable as I’m making her out to be.
When a soap-opera-style corporate takeover and a clandestine escape from the States comprise your next decade’s menu, well, I’d say you’re less free than most in your own skin.
I had just completed a study at the University of Georgia, and I was celebrating the beginning of my sabbatical. Sweet concept, that. My team and I took six years to determine that sex is “hottest” between a smart person and a – what’s the word these days? – dumb person. Turns out, intelligent people have trouble with the clichés of the bedroom. We observed several cosmopolitan couples using phrases like, “Oh, we’re doing this now?” and, “What are you, a producer for Cinemax?” Too much thinkin’ when you should be stinkin’, I guess.
Meanwhile, slower folk tend to giggle too much during the act. They are wonderfully talented at “letting go” and “going with the flow” and “tryin’ new thangs” in the sack, but they seem unable to make connections between sex and any real intimacy or universal consciousness. They exhibit the exact same emotional patterns when watching Wheel of Fortune as when screwing.
(Note to self: Upon return, observe salt-of-the-earth couples having sex as Wheel of Fortune airs in the background. Foreground? Why did I not think of this while we still had funding?)
So why is sex “hottest” between geniuses and the oft-stumped? We didn’t quite figure that out. Perhaps the smarter of the two jumps into some sort of pleasing, condescending teacher role, even though they don’t really know what they’re doing. Perhaps the slower has the satisfaction of getting ol’ Mr. or Ms. Facts & Figures del Squaresville to loosen up for once. They both come out of the room feeling like they’ve done someone a favor, I think.
Dim women conjure up the most unbelievable fake orgasms which smart men cherish with absolutely adorable faith. He wakes up the next morning to the sight of her reading the Sunday comics, and he swoons, swoops, and oops, they’ve done it again. The conversation over brunch is excruciating, of course.
Stupid men give a highly educated woman the wild eroticism of riding some sort of Tarzanic, monkey/wolf-man over the horizon into Bliss Parish. He makes her friends break out in fits of righteous indignation, which turns her on even more. He also reminds her of her idiot father.
My friends, I have digressed, and for that I apologize. I just spent six years watching people have sex. Give me a break.
The point is this: I bought peaches in South Carolina, and man, they were scrum-diddly-umptious.
Out among the big things —
The heights that gleam afar —
A feller gets to wonder
What means each distant star;
He may not get an answer,
But somehow, every night
He feels, among the big things,
That everything’s all right.
Arthur Chapman, Out Among the Big Things, st. 3
Johanna’s Tambourine Art Inspired by Stevie Nicks
One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:
I’m really upset with you two for eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil. But before I send you out into the cruel, thorny world, let me make sure you look alright. You’re not used to making clothes, I know. Or wearing them for that matter. Let’s see, um, Adam? You’re wife is a little exposed down there. Could you help adjust…
Highlight here for answer: [Eve's leaves]
Wednesday, November 14th, 2007
7:00 PM
Spike Gillespie’s Dick Monologues
Hyde Park Theater
Austin, TX
http://dickmonologues.com
SOLD OUT!
Thursday, November 8th, 2007
8:00 PM
Flipnotics at the Triangle
4600 Guadalupe
Austin, TX
(512) 380-0097
flipnotics.com
The New Weekly Show!
