Testing Testosterone

Testing. Hello test. 1.2.3.

I noticed last night my wife has this testing device to check glucose levels. It's called Free Style. I saw it sitting by the bathroom sink. (Well, at least it's not a pregnancy test. That'd be a bit of a shocker for about 9 reasons you don't wanna know.) Something like what diabetics use. I should probably ask her; might be good for the relationship to actually converse meaningfully, at least on alternating Wednesdays.

Anyway, it got me to thinking.

Which is typically dangerous.

And typically late at night.

Why not a little doodad like this to gauge testosterone levels?

Call it Freer Stylin'.

And it can be for both men and women. With men, it might not be all that hot a market item except as an Early Warning System (EWS) of oceanic testosterone spikes. I know there's not a heckuva lot of need for a testosterone EWS because naturally we know when things are stirring in the nether regions south of the belt buckle, or at least when we want them to stir.

They say testosterone is linked to aggressive behavior, so it might have some uses there. Might want to give it to W. and the Devil In A Suit Who Can't Handle His, Um, Shotgun before their Cabinet meetings.

And they say testosterone is the thing that gives women their sex drive too. I've heard. (Here come all those cyber-pies headed toward my face.)

You can look it up (and while you're at it The Quote Verifier will tell you about that famous quote).

An Early Warning System for testosterone in women.

I like that. Hmmmm. What would we call that one?

(Stop with the Hallmark card lovey-dovey posts already, willya.)

Play Ball?

Batter Up?

Delta Dawn?

Just Your Size?

Tropical Storm Warning?

Dawn vs. Dusk

This ain't a humorous post; more under the "or else" part of the "laugh or else" slogan I've recently launched. Right now, it is dusk. Evening. Evensong. My favorite part of the day.

Then there are dawn folks. Meloncutter's one of 'em. You may be too.

Often, dusk marries dawn. Or vice versa. (Not in this marriage, but, yes, in my previous one.)

I am of the belief, perhaps supported by scientific studies, that you're one or the other. Night hawks. Or roosters. As some put it, fowl or owl. (Or something like that.) Dr. Andrew, can you shed any lambent light on this?

In the Dawn Department, I want to recommend someone, informally The Secretary of Dawns.

I do this with some hesitancy. My never-met-except-through-words friend may be irked that I'm being forward enough to shine this dawn-intrusive spotlight in this manner. Forgiveness and understanding are sought in advance.

But we're all in the blogosphere. It's out there. In the ether.

In the mystic dawn.
The beautiful mystic dawn.

As chronicled and painted by The Secretary of Dawns.

Matins. Morning song. Morning prayer.

The still small voice of nature's pulse.

Check it out.

A journey "felt along the blood," to use Wordsworth's phrase from "Tintern Abbey."

Twilight of the Bras

I hardly ever know what to blog about. As a Laughorist, I delight in wordplay, sometimes mildly amusing, sometimes not. Like others, my attention gets caught by an item found in one of the so-called mainstream news sources.

I could lie and say I was struck by this headline in today's New York Times:

'The Twilight of the Ostrich-Plumed, Rhinestone-Brassiered Las Vegas Showgirl.'

But it wasn't the headline that caught my eye. It was the photo. The august and fairly stodgy ol' Gray Lady, the NYT, displays a nearly half-page robust image depicting the headline above. (BTW, guess what shows up first on a web search of "gray lady" on Yahoo? Yep. The website for The New York Times.)

I can't say it stirred my loins all that much (pretty campy -- I merely scanned the article, what with weekend ADHD and all), but, as I say, the shot of a big-breasted glam showgirl is a bit of a nonpharmacological pick-me-up on a Sunday morning. (After church, no less, adding to the taboo thing.)

Putting aside for a sec the, um, turgidity [just looking for an excuse to use that word] of the Times's prose, is this a foreplay of things to come? Is this a ratings "sweeps" weekend for the newspaper industry?

What next for The Gray Lady (or Old Gray Lady, according to some sources):

-- A page 3 girl featuring a scantily clad babe? Well, let's not stop there. How about featuring a page 3 guy every other day, for the sake of balance?

-- Half-page front-page photos of showgirls (or other sociological subjects of interest as typically found in, um, tabloids)?

-- Racy personals?

-- Lotto and lottery results in 60-point type?

Can't think of anything else.

That's what happens when you have nothing to say and you resort to the tried-and-true T&A cliche.

(Did I tell you we have thongs and boxers that proclaim: "Just Your Size"? I'll become a millionaire if the Times ever goes for that page 3 gal/guy and he/she is wearing Laughorist regalia.)

Laugh. Or...
Else.

Limited Time Offer

"Limited Time Offer."

Ever think how absurd that bit of adspeak is? I mean (aside from the hyphen missing from the first two words), what's it mean?

You tell me: name a consumer item that is not in some way constrained by time. I know, I know, no one's gonna say, "Eternal Offer," 'cept maybe one of them clever or trying-to-clever slogans on a marquee outside a church.

This brings to mind a few others (with choice Laughorist editorial comment):

While Supplies Last (if you're thinking this somehow applies to my sex life, I have a resounding NO COMMENT)

Doctor-Approved (what kind of doctor? is it a schmuck with a doctorate in marketing humping some product? is it the brother-in-law's cousin's neighbor's niece of the owner?)

Buy Now (ah yes, appealing to impulse buyers, like me).

I know I'm missing a whole bunch that you loyal readers will chime in on. Bring 'em on.

P.S. I need a signature sign-off, something like The Meloncutter's "Take care yall" (do I have it right, MC?). Hey, it's all part of branding, hunh? I've thought of "Keep smiling" but that's revoltingly Disneyesque and doesn't account for the arch or sardonic tone that often pervades this space (plus lots of times I just ain't funny, such as yesterday, or ever, in the view of some, er, assholes). Something like "Keep breakfasting"? (or whatever that goofy Cornflake King signs off with). I'm thinking cyber-out-loud here. How about: "Grin and bare it" or "Laugh or else"? Maybe "Keep on smirkin'"? Anyway, would my personality allow such never-changing constancy and consistency?

Tension Envelopes Reflux

Saw that ol' Tension Envelopes sign yesterday. It's near the end of 80, just before it becomes 95, in New Jersey. Ridgefield Park? Bogota? Too tired to Google it, having driven some 500 to 600 miles in one day yesterday, transporting the older of two daughters, en route to DC to Scotland to Berlin, all by way of shoes en pointe, despite a broken pinky toe, despite the distances of miles and the appetite of blossoming opportunity and adventure, items which made me pause on Broadway over by 96th, wondering do I wander downtown courting mischief, or do I turn onto the West Side Highway, head north, over the GWB, back into NJ, through PA, and then onward and upward? Which is what I did (the latter, that is; or The Ladder, that is, the one of a dozen steps), calling her again as I headed west on 80, telling her I was passing the Tension Envelopes sign, it looks like a working concern, thanking her for taking a digital snapshot of it on the way in, and her remarking that, well, some people work best within a tension envelope, and both of us tacitly knowing that my particular tension envelope was sealed with the air of love, apprehension, hope, relief, paternity, and surrender. A surrender worth getting down on one's knees for today, but not something I did, did I -- and only thought of today, bludgeoned by a friend's gonging reminder of what a lack of gratitude can exact in one's life.

So, 'Asan, visiting from the Brac, and I chatted it up all the way from FP, NJ to CNY, regaling each other with stories of mayhem, grief, hilarity, and heart-rending honesty. Yaaassssssss, yassss, sort of like Neal Cassady and friend -- though we now know Kerouac was more likely to take the bus, or end up home on LI with Mama, nursing his alcoholic remorse.

Never drowsy.

Too hyped up on anxiety, adrenalin, and caffeine.

Getting there just the same.

Hitting home, not the same at all.

Feeling hung over

from memory

loss

and attachment

today.

Just for today.

Inuit For The Money

You've heard that expression "She [or he] could sell ice cubes to the Eskimos." Let's pause for a second to update that ancient aphorism: "He [or she] could sell ice cubes to the Inuit."

Be forewarned, ye potential marketing targets, y'all potential ice-buying Inuit:

According to a recent report in The Wall Street Journal, designer ice cubes are on their way.

Yup. By October, you may be seeing "secured spring water ice cubes" at your favorite foodstuffs emporium. It says 12 cubes for about $3.99. For all I know, they're already in your store's, um, cube-icles.

We already know that people are willing to shell out two bucks a pop for allegedly pure alleged spring alleged water. (Just out of curiosity I'm wondering how much that equates to per gallon. Of water. Not gasoline. I'll leave it up to some sociologist to do his or her doctoral dissertation on the Price Per Gallon Willingness to Pay Ratio as a demographic and socioeconomic paradigm marker.) And we already know typical municipal water suppliers in the U.S. impose stricter standards than those mandated for designer water. But marketing is marketing, and people are willing to pay a premium for a beautiful name and a beautiful label with an ordinarily wonderful (or wonderfully ordinary) taste masquerading as something more, better, eloquent, classy. In a word: It. (In-You: It, if we're branding for customers way up North.)

If you're interested, these new cubes will be available (from suppliers I'd rather not hump for) as ice cube trays "containing purified municipal tap water" in plain or various flavors.

I think it's a safe bet you won't see these flavors: Oatmeal, Rusty, Dysentery, Particulate Matter, Wastewater. Maybe WASP.

Remember those old supposedly subliminal print ads in the Sunday Times Magazine, the ones where you could spot breasts "tastefully" hidden in a portion of the ice cubes in the ads for Scotch?

Now we can simply sell ready-made ice cubes already shaped into the body part of your choice.

Hold it. I gotta go. My phone's ringing off the hook. These people love my concepts.

They want to talk turkey.

Somehow, though, I don't think anyone wants ice cubes with wattles.

Maybe I should offer them in The Laughorist Store anyway.

Just for laughs, of course.

And oodles of very, very cold cash.

Father Knows Breast

You may have heard the shocking news that Babytalk magazine, "a free magazine that caters [remember "catering" as you read on] to young mothers, features a picture of a nursing baby on its latest cover. "Nursing baby" here means baby nursing on a human breast, presumably its own mother's breast. The adjectives to describe this seminal (wrong word) event, as cited in an Agence France Presse wire story today, include the following: shocked, horrified, gross, offended, uncomfortable, disgusting.

In the interest of accuracy, I must report that the article quotes the executive editor of Babytalk magazine as saying most readers gave a thumbs up (well, at least it wasn't penises up!) in a poll querying them about the cover.

One woman said she had to rip the cover off so her husband wouldn't see it. One offended mother was from Nevada, where stodgy and staid Las Vegas sits and where, if I'm not mistaken, prostitution is legal in some counties.

A mother of a four-month-old (human, I guess) is quoted as saying, "I am sick of seeing a baby attached to a boob."

Which makes me curious and inquisitive:

Is she sick of seeing her baby attached to her boob? Someone elses's boob? Her husband's?

If she's talking about herself, can she switch? Must she stare?

Or is their house filled with images of baby-attached boobs?

Does she have the same outrage if the baby is more or less attached to the boob tube while she files her nails and eats bonbons all day?

Is her husband just as sick and tired of this image? In other words, is he more of an ass man?

I could go on, of course.

But I'll let you nursing bloggers suck on this one to see how it nourishes you.

I haven't checked yet, but if JBWriterGirl and "The Not-So News" titular blog beat me to it, I'm sure her story tops mine. Or tops mine off.

This gives a whole new dimension to Halloween this year:

Will kids say "Trick or teat?" before mothers offer 'em a Milky Way?

For the record, I'd say the "offending" mother was a D cup.

And the child looks idyllically serene but is not winking.

Cheerios.