Pen Fifteen

Two thoughts on childhood, triggered by recent trips to NYC:

1. A friend and I were discussing pranks and jokes that kids play on each other.  Or, more precisely, we resurrected our absolute favorite: Club Pen Fifteen.  In case you don't remember or in case this somehow passed you by in third grade:

A: Do you want to join my club?
B: What is it?
A: It's called the Pen Fifteen Club.  It's awesome.
B: How do I join?
A: It's easy. All the members just have the club name written on their arm. I'll do it right now for you.
B: OK, I'm in.

Person B then spends the rest of the day with PEN15 fancifully written on his or her arm, then finds another unaware and uninitiated youth, and advances to the role of Person A.

Genius. Comic genius. Perhaps the only joke from elementary school that still makes me laugh.

2. I am forever delighted when I hear a song I used to sing along to as a kid, and realize that there are a number of metaphors that really passed me by. Monday in the car I heard this song and realized it was not about driving but actually about coke. That blew my mind:



This in turn reminded me about something else great: misunderstanding song lyrics as a child.  Like how I thought a second Eagles song was about hiding lion eyes.  And how I thought this one went "Every time I poop I lose":



That one still really cracks me up, by the way.  It gets stuck in my head all the time, unprompted.  And it takes a whole lot of self-restraint to not belt out all of "Every time I poop I lose" when this happens.  I am laughing right now just thinking about it.

I argue, I posit, I demonstrate, I contend ...

I am deep in the trenches of dissertation grant applications right now, which means that I really want to do anything but.  This includes tending to my neglected blog and its three readers.  Sorry, guys.

I wanted to blog about two things today, one being this: why the hell I wake up at 6:13 am every single morning.  This has happened every morning for the last two weeks, and it's starting to make me feel slightly nuts.  My alarm does not ring until 6:45 on weekdays and 7:30 on weekends, so what on earth is rousing me from much-needed sleep every morning at the exact same minute is really beyond me.  Ideas welcome.

The other subject I'm mulling over is my lifelong obsession with cities, which would make for a much more interesting and thoughtful post.  But it will have to wait until this application is done.

In the meantime, please enjoy this adorable music video about cuckoo clocks (I think?) of which I understand about every fourth word: