The Slider (REDUX)

9.4.2017  (first posted this week 2006)

Ya hear of the phenomenon of The Phantom Limb? Wikipedia succinctly defines it as "the sensation that an amputated or missing limb is still attached to the body." Sensations experienced include warmth, cold, itching, pain or burning. It's really quite interesting and research into it suggests that even those born without limbs still experience the sensations in the null-limb even though they have never had "real" experience. Wow. That's fuct up!

I've read up on (Googled) the condition because I've got a little phantom "limb" thing going on: I'm like every other voter in America who puts his or her sunglasses up on top of his or her head when ducking in the booth to waste his or her vote. I also chuck 'em up there when at the magazine store, the Peet's™ coffee queue, the cinema, the gas station pay kiosk, the ATM, the shooting range, the doctor's office, the Sonic Youth show at the Wiltern, the Cuban restaurant, the architecture tour ticket office, the TSA security check-in and so on and so on. My sunnys are on top of my head so often that I feel them there even when they're not.

That really screws me up when, for example, I think I hear the ice-cream man down the street to the right and whip my head around to look and -oh crap!- my glasses go flying. This has happened a lot: I'm often whipping my head around to see if the freelance (gypsy) fruit and veg van really is pulling down my block or if the critical care van (ambulance) is headed my way or if the Kool-Aid™ dude (Punchy™) is fixin' to crash through my wall. I've head-whipped many pairs of sunglasses to their doom. Now I'm afraid to do it. Now I feel them suckers up there morning, noon and night. In- and outdoors. I must see a professional (shrink) about this phantom sunglasses sensation soon.

Tonight - The Homestead.

bye-ee!

whrr ... clik!