15 July, 2009

Endless Possibility

I avoid meme's pretty religiously, but this is a special occasion. This is a celebration of the return to the Web of Rich Pearce and Ken Story's Realm of Possibility. If you don't know about the Realm, let me just tell you they're a couple of the most delightfully playful people I know.

So, out of the pure overflow of joy, here are Kevin's meme answers.

1) Movie theater Junior Mints vs. Movie theater Goobers
Dude! At those prices? You can't be serious!

2) Trip to the Beach vs. Trip to the Mountains
For hours, the beach. For days, the mountains. The beach is more fun to play on, but the mountains let me think.

3) Elliptical Machine vs. Treadmill
Clearly the elliptical. The treadmill pounds my knee joints and the elliptical puts my heart rate about 20 beats higher without feeling like I'm working any harder at all.

4) Spring vs. Autumn
Spring. I used to be an autumn person, but I'm really learning the optimism of youth. (I'm 45, so it's about freaking time.)

5) Milk Chocolate vs. Dark Chocolate
Dark. Intense beats mellow.

6) Interstate vs. Scenic highway
Interstate. When I drive for pleasure, it's no more than an hour. If I'm headed somewhere that could call for an interstate, it's because I want to "get there."

7) Savage tan vs. SPF50
Oh, SPF50. I don't spend enough time in the sun to maintain a tan. I'd burn every couple weeks.

8) Being sad vs. Being scared
Sad. I've learned to manage sad, but being scared shuts me down.

9) 2 ten dollar bills vs. 1 twenty dollar bill
1 Twenty. It's that little bit harder to spend, and I'd rather hold money than spend it.

10) Birkenstocks vs. Crocs
Birks. Plastic shoes make no sense to me at all.

11) Bad odor vs. Bad taste
I'd rather wear unstylish clothes than smell bad, if that's what you mean. If you're asking about food, man, I'll eat it if it won't kill me.

12) Ripped pants vs. Wet shirt
On whom? And how many jokes do you really expect me to overlook here? Anyway, as a Floridian tennis player I'd better be OK with a sweat-soaked shirt, so I'll go with that.

13) Belching vs. Flatulence
My ex gave me a life-long terror of belching, so I'd best go with flatulence.

14) Chicken salad sandwich vs. Tuna salad sandwich
I'd never willingly do that to a chicken, so tuna it is.

15) Classic styles vs. Trendy styles
Classic is my only hope, since I'm still catching up with the trends of the '70's.

16) Old friend vs. New friend
Hmmm. Worn gold coins or new gold coins? Give me proven friend.

17) Dolphin vs. Porpoise
I know dolphins are learning evil from humans, so maybe porpoises?

18) Water slide vs. Roller coaster
I last did a water slide; it was a blast.

19) Jules Verne vs. Robert Louis Stevenson
I've only read Stevenson. I like humanity in my stories, and I enjoyed the humanity in his.

20) Goatee vs. Soul Patch
Never versus absolutely no way on the face of this planet. I guess the goatee.

21) Being the recipient of a thoughtful gesture vs. Being the recipient of a compliment
Give me the relationship that led to either.

22) Nap on the couch vs. Nap in a hammock
Hammocks are surrounded by interesting stuff. I have never successfully slept in a hammock.

23) Holidays vs. Vacation
Holidays. Vacations are scary to me. They're huge setups for failure. So are holidays, but I feel like they're the devil I know.

24) Aisle vs. Window
Window. I want to see the world roll under me, and don't ever really need to get up.

25) Slapstick vs. Wit
Wit. Slapstick usually makes me uncomfortable.

26) Logic vs. Emotion
I neither trust nor am comfortable with logic. Emotion is real. Logic is put on.

27) Whipped cream vs. Cool Whip
Whipped Cream is food. Cool Whip is a chem experiment playing out on a planetary scale.

28) High School Reunions vs. Family Reunions
Family reunions. I've never attended my high schools reunions and never intend to. School was one huge steaming pile of embarassment for me, and I don't ever want to face it again.

29) ALF vs. ET
ET, since I never saw Alf.

30) Canadians vs. Australians
Aussies owned tennis for decades, and I love their sporting mentality. I've never seen the joy of hockey, though I've been at live pro games.

31) Gifts vs. Gift Certificates
Gifts. I'd much rather win or lose at choosing something that says how I feel than try to say how much the person is worth to me.

32) Jet skiing vs. Water skiing
Water skiing. If it ain't hard, it ain't worth doing.

33) Yardwork vs. Housework
Housework. I live in the house, not the yard, so everything I do in the house feels like it pays off.

34) Ostentatious vs. Precocious
? Showy verses talented beyond his years? Um. Let's go with Precocious.

35) Phone call vs. Email
Email. A phone call stops me from whatever I'm doing. Email lets me answer more quickly and when I'm available. Hence, I really love to text (SMS) the message, "Call me when you get a chance to talk about ...." and supply sufficient details that the person is prepared for the subject.

36) Winning the lottery vs. Finding buried treasure
Finding buried treasure. It's much more realistic and dependable.

37) Sweating vs. Shivering
I do both without much noticing.

38) “Oh no, you di-unt.” vs. “Don’t even go there.”
Do these sound like sayings from the '70's? I don't THINK so!

39) Blue ink vs. Black ink
I'd love to use blue ink, because it stands out against black toner, but somehow, something always makes me remember why blue ink doesn't work for me. I wish I could remember what it was, because every 3 years or so I have to get myself a blue pen and toss it after a couple weeks.

40) Ukelele vs. Bag pipes
The PIPES! The pipes are a martial and religious experience evoking passion, terror, patriotism, grief, and pride from the first sounding of the drones! A ukelele says, "What are you doing awake? Come back out to the beach at sunset and we'll drink the night away."

41) Rainbows vs. Sunbeams
Either can make me cry.

42) The sound of your own voice vs. The way you look in photos
I'd rather hear my voice. At least I can focus on what I was saying. When I see myself I just wonder why God made everyone else look at that.

43) Extremely firm handshake vs. Extremely weak handshake
Extremely firm. When a thing is so easy to do right, it scares me that a person would decide to do it wrong. When a person is overly firm, at least I know they know they game and are trying to play it in some way. An overly weak handshake tells me I'd best not invest any trust in that person.

44) Runny nose vs. Nagging cough
Runny nose. A runny nose doesn't feel like it's going to pull rib muscles or blow the top of my head off.

45) Packing vs. Unpacking
Unpacking. How I wish I could do it. 90% of the 33% of the things I was able to keep and move have been packed for 6 months now.

46) A hole in the toe of your sock vs. A hole in the seat of your underwear
I can repair a hole in my socks. The underwear's got to go.

47) Zoos vs. Botanical gardens
You know? I like animals much better than plants, but I'd rather go to the botanicals. I wonder why?

48) Trip to the dentist vs. Tax day
The dentist is no big deal. I had full braces and headgear for 5 years, so no cleaning or root canal or crown is upsetting to me.

49) Awkward comment vs. Awkward silence
Awkward comment every time. I fill in blanks much more negatively than I should, so an awkward comment is invariably and vastly less disturbing to me than a silence would have been.

50) Too much Rich vs. Too little Rich
I've done too little for a couple years now, and am pretty jazzed about trying out too much. :-)

6 comments:

Diabolical Genius said...

Thank you sir for the kind words and benevolent allotment of the precious space here at The Familyhood Church. It's touching that your metaphoric oil pan runneth over.

It's good to be back. And I'm sure in the coming months (if I know the Righteous Madman like I think I do) we'll catch you up on some of the roller coaster journey of the last 3 years. Hopefully, we will bring as much to the blogsphere as you are.

45? Wow, you are a lot younger than Rich. Wouldn't have guessed it from your relative maturity levels.

Your answers are classic just like your style. And they have revealed everything.

I will now and forevermore picture you as a cold, sweaty, pale man with a soul patch dressed in a wet shirt, Birkenstocks, and a kilt (with potentially no underwear) playing the bag pipes on a mountainside covered in heatherrrrr and crying as the sunbeams spotlight your performance. I'll wonder why God made me look at that, but then I'll realize that somehow it made me feel better.

Plus my sides will probably still be hurting from the chuckle your ukelele answer gave me. "What are you doing awake?" HA!

Milly said...

Kevin,

Blue ink tends to get a bit messy and shows more when it does. Perhaps you've had a leak or a smug a time or two.

BTW your ex would have hated hanging with my kids. We can take burping to an art. Now to make it clear it’s in the car or at home and lots of giggles and “good one” are in order. We also have a rule in non- fancy restaurants-You can only blow straw paper at a family member or a friend. Strangers are out of bounds and you will have to apologize to your neighbor that made the mistake of being hit. You should also pick up the paper if it goes awry.

I’m such an odd parent. I know that my kids can be good in nice restaurants because I’ve taken them. No straws or burps.

Dana said...

Hmmm...There's something that makes me wonder if you didn't step out of your comfort zone and do this particular meme just to answer the bagpipe vs. ukelele question definitively, publicly and once-for-all :-)

I smiled the whole way through this, and smiling the whole way through something was a gift I needed today. So, thanks.
(P.S. I'm really curious--now that I've discovered you're the expert on the inner workings of instruments' feelings--what an accordian says!)

DougALug said...

Kevin, I here you are living in my neck of the woods now.

Email me and I'd love to meet you for lunch or something.

God Bless
-Doug

Rich said...

Ken's first two paragraphs and the fourth one in the comments above, I can roll with those. Besides those, however, I just wanted to run in panic from the rest of what he said.

I'll be 42 the first part of August, so lies, vicious lies, there, especially when he speaks of maturity levels. I'm nothing if not mature. "Mature" should be my middle name. Instead, it's Rich, and I'm certainly not that.

I'm just going to picture you as a tennis player, and forget all about the bagpipes, kilts and no underwear stuff that Ken prattles on about. And when I say tennis, I'm talking the modern player with loose-fitting, comfortable shorts, and not the John Stocktons that were worn in yesteryear.

But HUGE thanks for putting this on your site and for everything else you've done for us, too! Much appreciated.

karen said...

I love these, Kevin!