I have something really embarrassing to report

I'm in the middle of working on this...thing...* and I was trying to recall the physical sensations of shock, and the word jaw-dropping came to mind, and then I thought, but your jaw usually doesn't drop, it's more like you open your mouth voluntarily and start panting so you can send more oxygen to your freaked out brain. 

Then I remembered that just the other week, my jaw actually dropped, forcing my mouth to fall open and remain wide open, along with my eyes, after reading that NASA was going to announce something having to do with alien life forms. I sat here in this very chair, reading and rereading the words alien life forms, with what felt like no muscular control of my face, which was contorted with -- and here again, I have to strive for the words. Uh, the greatest feeling of impending satisfaction that I've ever experienced? Like, an anticipation beyond joy? Maybe I've been "happier" in my life that at that moment, but I've never felt so much on the precipice of discovering something essential about the nature of the universe, of finally seeing a change in the direction of humankind. I felt not only optimistic, but truly grateful to be alive at this moment, about to receive knowledge deeper than our entire race had so far gleaned.

Then I read the rest of the article, and I was like, wait. A bacteria in a pond in California? That's not exactly outer space (California joke here). That's when I realized that my eyes had been bugging and my jaw was completely hanging off my face, exactly like the cliche, and I felt embarrassed that I'd responded with such intense emotion. How dumb am I? What, I thought they were going to roll out a cuddly ET who would teach us the twuth about wife?** Who knew I was so eager for the aliens to land? Maybe I should go join an alien worship cult in...wait for it...CALIFORNIA.

But I haven't given up hope: I know that Wikileaks has a bunch of stuff on UFOs they could still release. I know that it's probably going to say that all UFO sightings have actually been top secret fucked up military shit, but still.

Anyway, break's almost over, and I still don't have my words. All I can think of is time slowing, individual objects becoming extra distinct and taking on extra meaning, numbness or tingling in the body. Nothing new. Maybe I should just lift it from one of the other times I've described getting shocking news. (When would that be, again?)

In other embarrassing news, I read Bret Easton Ellis' Imperial Bedrooms, and maybe I read it too fast, but I do not understand what the hell happened. Like, the events and who was behind them and what the fuck, who are these people and why are they so abhorrent? Do human beings actually act like the people in his book? Horrid. That's what I get for listening to Amazon's "Suggestions for you, Janice."

Suggestion for me, Janice: Get back to work! 

(* I figure it's okay to stop writing and procrastinate as long as I'm procrastinating by writing something else.)

(** I know way too much about wife as it is! Take my husband, etc.)

Comments

[Satia]

I once had a jaw dropping experience at the mall. I was there to pick up my son and it was late, about the time the mall closed (because he worked there so I was there late, typically avoiding malls otherwise).

Anyway, I'm walking along quickly to where he works when I see this girl who is so stunningly beautiful I not only felt my jaw drop but I literally stumbled a bit as I was walking. I caught myself quickly (ahhhh . . . back before I had vertigo) and managed to close my mouth but I couldn't help wondering what a young girl that stunning was doing walking around this particular mall.

Which really has nothing to do with anything really except I should be working too but I'm not. I'm reading your blog.

Janice, you are my enabler.

[Marie]

i was pretty disappointed by the new life form--i expected bacteria, but i hoped it was from mars or something. at least mono lake looks like mars.

[Diana]

Janice! I can't wait to finish my studies, I'm so damned tired.

I was puttering around my room when I heard that announcement on the news and became still. It was disappointing to hear it was only bacteria. But logically speaking or not logically speaking, it would be awfully silly to think there are no other life forms out there. The Universe is vast. Who knows what's out there. But I will tell you, if we don't get it together already, we will destroy ourselves and this planet. It makes me so sad. This world has become so cruel. :(

[LORMO]

Janice!

We do NOT want aliens to find us. They will not be nice.

[Kirsten]

I don't know why people are disappointed in the life from turning out to be bacteria. It's still a more advanced life form than racists or tea baggers.

Wait. Was that redundant?

[Kirsten]

life FORM, not from

sheesh.