Tag: ideas
One of the most bizarrely cool people I’ve ever met was an oral surgeon who treated me after a ridiculous accident (that’s another story), Dr. Z.
Dr. Z. was, easily, the best and most competent doctor or dentist I’ve ever encountered – and after that accident, I encountered quite a number. He came stunningly highly recommended, had an excellent record, and the most calming bedside manner I’ve ever seen.
That last wasn’t the sweet gentle caretaking sort of manner, which some nurses have but you wouldn’t expect to see in a surgeon. No; when Dr. Z. told me that one of my broken molars was too badly damaged to save, and I (being seventeen and still moderately in shock) broke down crying, he stared at me incredulously and said, in a tone of utter bemusement, “But – I am very good.”
I stopped crying on the spot. In the last twenty-four hours or so of one doctor after another, no one had said anything that reassuring to me. He clearly just knew his own competence so well that the idea of someone being scared anyway was literally incomprehensible to him. What more could I possibly ask for?
(He was right. The procedure was very extended, because the tooth that needed to be removed was in bits, but there was zero pain at any point. And, as he promised, my teeth were so close together that they shifted to fill the gap to where there genuinely is none anymore, it’s just a little easier to floss on that side.)
But Dr. Z.’s insane competence wasn’t just limited to oral surgery.
When I met Dr. Z., he, like most doctors I’ve had, asked me if I was in college, and where, and what I was studying. When I say “math,” most doctors respond with “oh, wow, good for you” or possibly “what do you want to do with that after college?”
Dr. Z. wanted to know what kind of math.
I gave him the thirty-second layman’s summary that I give people who are foolish enough to ask that. He responded with “oh, you mean–” and the correct technical terms. I confirmed that was indeed what I meant (and keep in mind, this was upper-division college math, you don’t take this unless you’re a math major). He asked cogent follow-up questions, and there ensued ten or so minutes of what I’d call “small talk” except for how it was an intensely technical mathematical discussion.
He didn’t, as far as I can tell, have any kind of formal math background. He just … knew stuff.
I was a competitive fencer at this point in time, so when he asked if I had any questions about the surgery that would be necessary, I asked him if I’d be okay to fence while I had my jaw wired shut, or if it would interfere with breathing.
“Fencing?” he said.
“Yes,” I said, “like swordfighting,” because this is another conversation I got to have a lot. (People assume they’ve misheard you, or occasionally they think you mean building fences.)
“Which weapon?”
“Uh. Foil.”
“No, it won’t be safe,” and he went off into an explanation of why.
Turns out, he was also a serious fencer – and, when I mentioned my fencing coach, an old friend of his. (I asked my fencing coach later, and, oh yes, Dr. Z., a good friend of mine, excellent fencer.) (My coach was French. Dr. Z. was Israeli. I never saw Dr. Z. around the club or anything. I have no idea how they knew each other.)
So this was weird enough that later, when I was home, I looked Dr. Z. up on Yelp. His reviews were stellar, of course, but that wasn’t the weird thing.
The weird thing was that the reviews were full of people – professionals in lots of different fields – saying the same thing: I went to Dr. Z. for oral surgery, and he asked me about what I did, and it turned out he knew all about my field and had a competent and educated discussion with me about the obscure technical details of such-and-such.
All sorts of different fields, saying this. Lawyers. Businessmen. Musicians.
As far as I can tell, it’s not that I just happened to be pursuing the two fields he had a serious amateur interest in – he just seemed to be extremely good at literally everything.
I have no explanation for this. Possibly he sold his soul to the devil.
He did a damn good job on my surgery.
this is sort of amazing
Right, so who thinks Dr. Z is some sort of immortal being who gets bored and goes to pick up a new degree or hobby every coupla years or so?
Bad: aliens that insist upon referring to human women as “feeeeemales”.
Good: aliens that insist upon dividing humans into binary categories, but the binary in question is based on something we’d regard as trivial and bizarre.
pro cilantro and anti cilantro
Just to screw with us they refer to have designated half the population as “edible” and the other half is “inedible.”
No intention of eating anyone, they just like how uncomfortable it makes everyone.
Even better: the aliens all agree on who is edible and who is inedible, but the humans have no idea what the criteria is
Even better: there is no criteria, the Aliens just keep a running list of whenever one member designated a human as edible or not. People are baffled because the selection appears random yet all the aliens are up to date, so there must be SOMETHJNG
I love this because it implies the aliens possess either (1) a universal hive mind or (2) an intergalactic group chat dedicated to fucking with humanity
what if production of macbeth where the actors don’t wash off the fake blood, and they keep adding to it whenever they kill someone, and eventually the audience is like “how can the other characters not see what they did, see their guilt?”
i like this. particularly since i have incredibly ineffective methods for removing fake blood.
btw, if anyone puts any potential ideas for staging macbeth up in the next four months, i will steal them, fair warning.
This would be interesting for so many of the tragedies!
The older Capulets and Montagues being caked with faded blood, but they’re so used to it they barely notice .Romeo’s clothes being stained with both Tybalt’s and Paris’ by the time he reaches the Capulet tomb.
Brutus still being bloodsoaked before and during Mark Antony’s speech.
Claudius wearing multiple layers over his clothes and removing them to reveal a blood soaked shirt as he wallows in regret.
Coriolanus’ scars being hidden by remaining covered in blood and being one of the only actors to be so until his death.
Iago’s clothes remaining pristine as he manipulates other people to his bidding, allowing his hands, clothes and conscience to remain clean and clear
original theory: succubi are always women, incubi are always men
facts: in fact succubus comes from the latin word “succubare” which means “to lie under” and incubus comes from the latin word “incubare” which means “to lie on”
new improved theory: incubi are always tops and succubi are always bottoms. gender doesn’t matter at all.
addendum: if the sex demon in question is versatile, they’re a concubus, from the latin for ‘to lie with/beside’.
one thing me n my art loving gf would do is visit galleries and play a game called “root, loot or boot”
the gist is that you would look at a group of paintings in a room and decide which figure in the painting you’d root (fuck, in Australian slang), which painting you’d loot (steal and put on your wall at home) and which painting you’d boot (punt into the garbage because it’s shit and Not Art)
a couple of things about my experiences:
1. this game is a lot more fun if you’re attracted to women because there’s so many Hot Gals to choose from
2. if you are attracted to men, you will spend a lot of time going “well, looks like I’ll have to pick jesus again” as my bi gf did
3. it gets more complicated in modern art museums and you find yourself having saying, “I’d fuck the rhombus” “you CAN’T fuck the rhombus” “then I’ll fuck that blue squiggle thing. what’s it called?” “creeping existential dread in blue” “then does that mean I’m fucking the squiggle or am I getting fucked by the existential dread it represents?” “aren’t we all already getting fucked by existential dread?”
4. if you play this with an art history nerd, they may decide to kill you over one of your “boot” choices
5. you will get Disapproving Looks from other patrons who overhear your heated debates
6. it’s also the best fun you’ll ever have in an art gallery
i’m half asleep and idk how much sense this will make but: relationship birds. you don’t choose them. they just show up. the size and rarity has no apparent relation to the depth or quality of the relationship. getting a phonecall like “so i guess it’s official” and you’re like “oh so you got one too” because you were both at work when a house finch showed up on your desks. different birds at different milestones, only some of them official. bird prenups. bird vows. at the end of every wedding you wait for your bird and hope to god it’s something manageable. getting married and almost immediately getting a divorce because you agreed to richer or poorer but you didn’t anticipate a silkie nesting on your head. it refuses to stay in the marital cage. “i’m sorry jimothy i just can’t live like this, i can’t” “i didn’t ask for this to be our bird susan!!! if we can get through this maybe our newly strengthened love will attract a new bird” “you don’t know that for sure and i can’t take that chance”
at the time this idea seemed worth waking up to write it down
in my dream this was really fake-deep with a lot of romantic imagery, and you can sort of tell where i woke up a bit because this post gets derailed about halfway through. and in retrospect this was probably a weird subconscious interpretation of a carpenters song. but anyway now that i’m awake all i can think about is The Worlds Worst Dating Sim
Dori peered suspiciously around her bedroom door before ushering Lilian inside.
“Okay, what happened?” Lilian asked.
“You need to be sworn to secrecy,” Dori hissed, wild-eyed. Short blonde hair went in every direction. Since it always did that, this meant nothing.
“Should I have brought my shovel?”
There was a peeping sound from near Dori’s bed. Or what might have been Dori’s bed, but was definitely a pile of blankets. It was hard to distinguish between furniture and indiscriminate piles of stuff.
Lilian’s eyes widened. “No.”
“Secrecy! Sworn to!”
“Dori. Is there a bird in here?”
There was further peeping.
“You can’t tell anyone about this, Lilian.”
“Oh my god.” Lilian’s hands went to her face, gleeful. “Oh my god! Who is it!”
“I don’t know.” Dori moved her blankets with a sigh to reveal a black-capped chickadee sitting on a pillow.
“… you don’t know?” Lilian asked, lowering her hands.
“I have no idea!” The chickadee peeped agreement. “I tried leaving the window open in case it was just lost and I tried throwing it out the window but it just came back and then I felt like a jerk for throwing it out the window and I had to give it its own pillow.”
Lilian scratched her head. “So do you think it’s like… a crush bird?”
“It must be, right?” Dori sniffled and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her hoodie.
“That’s good, though!” Lilian said. “That means they like you back!”
“I guess.”
“Who do you have a crush on?”
Dori turned red. “A couple people,” she muttered.
“That’s okay,” Lilian said, trying to find a safe place to sit. “We’ll just… we’ll figure out who of them might like you back! Right?”
“It’s embarrassing,” Dori complained.
“I tell you all about my crushes.”
“That’s different.”
“Just name them and we can figure out who the bird is with. And I’ll only make fun of you a little.”
Dori sighed. The bird peeped. “Okay, uh. I guess it could be Ricki, or Julian. Or Laura.”
“Okay, well–”
“Or Terry.”
“That’s–”
“Or Shawn.”
“Oh, god.”
“Or Olivia.”
“The library girl?”
“She’s mysterious!”
“Shawn?”
“He could have hidden depths beneath his muscly exterior! You don’t know!”
“There’s no room for depths! There’s no room for anything but more muscles!”
The chickadee flapped indignantly.
“Is there anyone in the entire school who the bird couldn’t be for?” Lilian asked.
“I don’t know!” Dori snapped defensively. “You? You don’t have a bird!”
Lilian was briefly taken aback. “I don’t – well. Yeah. I mean. Obviously. But, like. Is that the only reason, or–”
“I never should have told you about this stupid bird,” Dori said with another sniffle. “I’m just going to keep it in my room until it changes its mind and leaves and no one will ever know.”
“No, no, don’t be like that!” Lilian said. “Here, we can narrow this down. We know it can’t be Terry–”
“Why can’t it be Terry?”
“He was on that field trip last year,” Lilian reminded her, “he saw you eat that bug.”
“We were supposed to eat the bug!” Dori protested. “They were edible crickets! That was the whole point! It was for science, Lilian.”
“I don’t know what you ate, but it definitely wasn’t a cricket and I don’t think it was supposed to be in that bowl.”
Dori rubbed at her cheeks with the heels of her hands. “That doesn’t rule him out,” she mumbled. “It’s a classy little bird.”
“You know that has nothing to do with it,” Lilian said. “My Aunt Katy is like a little fairy princess, but she’s had a pelican three times now. Three different guys. Pelicans.”
“I guess.”
“Look, it’s obvious what we have to do.” Lilian crossed her arms. “We need to investigate every person you have a crush on until we find out who’s got a chickadee in their room.”
Dori pulled a comforter over the bird and her own head. Her voice was muffled and accompanied by chirps. “Maybe I can just lie here and wait to die, instead.”
“Tomorrow is Taco Tuesday.”
“Maybe I can just lie here and wait to die after tomorrow, instead.”
“maybe i can just lie
here and wait to die after
tomorrow instead
^Haiku^bot^6. I detect haikus with 5-7-5 format. Sometimes I make mistakes. | Who do I read? | Contact | HAIKU BOT NO | Good bot! | Meep morp! Zeet!
action movie about a guy who pretends to be a hitman and does the whole “25% up front and the rest when the job is done” thing but then just keeps the down payment, doesn’t kill anybody, and stops responding to the client’s calls, knowing that they can’t sue him for breach of contract without confessing to trying to hire a hitman. problem is now a lot of people who are comfortable with the concept of paying someone to kill someone else are mad at him
none of his former clients know his real identity, due to him using a fresh fake for each con, so he decides that his only hope of making it out of this mess unscathed is to land the inevitable contract for his own assassination and fake his own death. thus begins his deadly race against the clock and against other actual bounty hunters, former clients, and a smoldering ex lover, whom he must betray, persuade or kill. darknet: the catfish bounty
it has to be a comedy
because competent badguys won’t use someone who hasn’t been vouched for and/or got a good reputation, the former clients our pretend hitman is avoiding are all meatballs
dangerous meatballs but meatballs nonetheless
like those thieves in ‘snatch’ who have a dog that swallowed a squeaky toy, that kind of criminals
or like jamie lee curtis in fish called wanda
in fact i think there definitely has to be a dog involved
in fact i think there
definitely has to
be a dog involved
^Haiku^bot^6. I detect haikus with 5-7-5 format. Sometimes I make mistakes. | Who do I read? | Contact | HAIKU BOT NO | Good bot! | Beep-boop!
Today a 27-year-old man I was taking care of in the hospital asked if I could help him get boosted up in his hospital bed because, and I quote, “You look strong. Like, you look like you could take a motherfucker out.”
That is the most flattering thing that a patient has ever said to me, and I’m counting the little old lady who told me my eyebrows were beautiful, and the very deaf old German man who yelled at me that I was “WONDERFUL!!! MADE BY GOD TO BE A NURSE!!!!!”
sparksoffandommagic 