Iotae

Three items from McSweeney's latest issue of "The Believer," of which I am not a usual reader, but happened to read recently:

1. "Killing a rodent is just another way to kill yourself when you're up against the wall. It’s easier to bite a human than to love one."

From "The Rodent Is Myself," by Andrew Friedman

2. "Animals are sexual talismans and aphrodisiacs. I'm no pervert. But I realize that animals appeal to our sensate selves with their tactile features and wild demeanors. A purring cat is sexier to me than a man doused in cheap cologne, but I don't want to have sex with either of them."*

From "Free Your Beast: Reviving the Animal Tale," by Trinie Dalton

3. "As I struggle to eradicate irony from my Modernist lifestyle, I find my major motivations is a desire to enjoy irony-free sex, as a way of rejecting any realistic notions of body image or sexual conduct I've absorbed through the media."

Ibid.

Am I the only one who cannot grasp this concept of irony-filled sex? Not that I cannot grasp that it happens, but that someone should have developed their sexual self in such rhythmic tandem with outside images, in such a hopelessly hyper-conscious way? Or that a person should be so self-aware, or neurotic to have started attempting to excise their self-awareness or neurosis, which is tangled up in media imagery, from their sex life? Or do you now laugh, ha, McBickle, you are in denial—we are all tangled up in media imagery when it comes to our sex lives? Or, you say, are you so deluded you are willing to entertain the idea that you are unique in this way, and truly keep the two separate?

When it comes to my delusions, be comforted, this seems the least harmful.

(Isn't there some kind of law in place that punishes those who attempt to use the phrase "irony-free" in McSweeney's? Shall we contact our congressional members and ask them to get to work on a bill immediately, if not?)

And now, on NPR, a teaser for a high-schooler who "listens back to recordings she made the day after 9/11." Makes me remember I have those tapes as well. And that I forgot. And that somewhere in my house is a paper mask I wore that day. And that probably never want to find it, or consider for longer than the length of time it takes me to type this sentence why I chose to keep it.

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*Note to Men: Do not wear Vaseline Intensive Care moisturizer on your face, even if you have a sunburn, unless you want to smell like my grandmother.

In illustration:

VICM + Face = My Grandmother = Not Sexy