Beauty is Imperfection

I’m watching a television show on NBC about a woman who has opened up a Coney Island kitsch store full of furry hula hoops, leopard print roller skates, Hello Kitty t-shirts and unicorns. “How cool it that?” asked the host of the show.

I’ve also read that Verizon has finally come to an agreement with Apple to offer its services on the iPhone. The deal will make the device available to millions of new potential subscribers. How cool is that?

My wife and I are having a baby. How cool is that? As we prepare, we’ve been watching online videos about maternity wards and the steps they have to take to keep grungy, matronly baby-nappers from making off with your infant–by attaching fobs to the baby’s feet and putting the wards on lockdown like a prison if the baby is suddenly moved. It’s called “Code Pink.” How cool is that?

I once knew a girl who gave up her job as a business reporter so she could make jam. Ironically, she made it big and began to get interviewed by people who do what she used to. How cool is that?

I keep seeing people on TV who seem to have absolutely no job other than to keep asking “How cool is that?” when somebody else accomplishes something. Actually, all you need these days is a sex tape or a criminal record and you can get your own reality show and bump people off the programming schedule who might actually have real talents, who have cured diseases or who have solved impossible mathematical proofs for sub-manifolds. The very Zen message here is–if you want to be famous badly enough, you can be, no matter who you are. It helps if you are willing to kill somebody or appear naked. How cool is that?

I just got through my blog for today simply by repeating a catch phrase, the type that makes you feel a sense of belonging with your social group and yet ironically also stops all conversation as a rhetorical question. How cool is that?

But at the same time, we don’t care, because we’re Americans and we answer anyway. As an Australian woman I know likes to ask, “Are Americans crazy when they answer a rhetorical question?”

If you answered that question, you’re one of the crazy Americans!

How cool is that?