well, it's finally going to happen. the endless string of good people dying from being crushed under cars, elevators, elephant feet, and any other heavy objects dangled precariously over your cranium will soon be over. a neuroscientist in italy is convinced within the next two years he will be able to successfully transfer a head from one body to another. no more "uncle teddy's body is perfectly fine! it's just his head what got crushed by the camaro." nope. not this time. now, teddy will be rushed to a hospital, ostensibly deceased, and then waiting in the wings -- playing the part of the hero -- the head of someone who no longer has a body. but damnit if that head isn't in mint condition. sure, the hair is thinning, the teeth have worn down some, but overall it's pretty low miles. and the brain runs like a dream. just pop it on there, wait a few weeks, fire it up, you got a new uncle teddy. or will it be the head running things? the family of the head will probably be in for the closest thing to a reunion. "michael, you're back! and you're a foot taller!" "yeah, sweet new penis, man!" "that's not michael. that's our uncle teddy! he's just balder now!" will we eventually just swap out bodies like wheels on a car? people opt to leave their families given the chance to be among the first to colonize mars. will the same thrill exist with the first volunteers to have head transplants? "i just have to know what it would feel like to walk with bigger feet." but at least the risk of traveling to mars comes with seeing new sites. what is the greatest benefit of waking up on a new body? "finally got rid of that stupid birthmark!" it could be beneficial for people going through gender reassignment surgery. now it would just be body reassignment. "you've been assigned to larry. get your head on that body by o'six hundred." it seems doubtful we'll ever actually see this. as usual, they have experimented this surgery on helpless mice and even an orangutan. The mice were paralyzed but could blink their eyes, and they died a few hours after being off life support. the orangutan lived for nine days with the new body, but then the body's immune system rejected the new head. like having a cold. "get this damn thing off of me. this isn't karen. it's moving my arms all wrong." "but without the head you'll die." "you heard me. get this damn thing off of me." so maybe the body controls more than we think.

it was bound to happen. while running (very slowly as usual. the amount of people whose days i have made by being their 'mark' as they shuffle ahead and pass me faster than you would ever guess based upon just a quick glance at them, and who prove to themselves that they are not in as bad of shape as their physical form would lead one to believe - that they've still got it - that parade of people is endless. people in flip flops late for the bus, women with strollers, highly overweight people, people who never lift their feet more than 1" from the surface -- they've all passed me, and i've passed very few of them) i happened upon a portly gentleman who took up the majority of the sidewalk. to his left, a tree. to his right, a yard. i would have run around to the right and traipsed across the yard, but i noticed he was holding a hammer in his right hand. middle of the day, just walking along with a hammer. had he just gone to his car to get it for some repairs on his house? was he a maniac just waiting for a mindless jogger to trot by so that he could bash them on the head and cross another thing off his new year's resolutions list? i'll never know. i decided that heading out into the street would be the best maneuver. was it irrational? probably. but very so often you hear about someone playing the knockout game or just being a lunatic mad at society, and i decided i would avoid that. when i was past him he shouted something, and i looked back. it was more of a loud grunt as if he meant to say, "hey you!" but it came out, "anhhh!" and when i looked back and saw him, i honestly couldn't tell if the face he was making was "hey, sorry for taking up the sidewalk. i would have moved over, but i didn't hear you coming." or "i can't believe you sensed what i was about to do ...which was club your dumb head senseless. good for you, my friend. you've escaped a thorough hammering on this day. wise move using the street." i'll never know which it was ...but i think we can all be pretty confident that it was the latter.

well this is odd. i seem to be somewhere. and i seem to be moving. all these other things around me seem to be moving too. where are we going? what are we? how did we get here? is there an end to this? maybe i should stop worrying about that and just enjoy this. but what is this? i just suddenly am something. does that mean i'll be this forever? i like this! i'm soaring! this is great. the things next to me seem to change all the time. some of them grow larger. some disappear. what is that in the distance? why is it coming toward us? it has colors ...oh, that's pretty! what is that? i hope it's friendly. maybe it's where i'm meant to be, but i don't want this ride to end. maybe i can slow down just a little bit, take better care of myself and stretch this out. ...that didn't seem to do anything. i'll just have to enjoy it while it lasts. wow, those colors are so cool. they're really close now. well, i hope if that is where i'm meant to be that it doesn't hurt. or that maybe i get to go back up and do this aga....

if you don't use twitter, please make sure you say, "i don't twit ...or twat ...or whatever it's called." how else would anyone possibly know that you are so isolated from the assimilating masses that you don't even know how to pronounce the very thing you are clearly unaware of? never mind that twitter is on the news constantly, always referenced in connection with current events, political discussions, used as a polling device, and said in general conversation very regularly. nope, you didn't hear any of it. you don't turn on your computer. you don't watch shows where tweets pop up in the bottom corner. you don't even read the newspaper and see a story that refers to someone creating some sort of incident via twitter and think, "huh ...twitter. wonder what that is." not good 'ol you. you live on the same planet as everyone, and yet you've managed to be completely oblivious to one of the more ubiquitous things in society. good for you. or maybe it's just that you like people to think that way about you. maybe you thought it was endearing when an older relative didn't know about a contemporary phenomenon, and you thought, "yeah, why the hell do i know about that dumb band meant for younger people? grandpa has it right. he does his own thing and isn't concerned with what everyone else is doing." or maybe he is. maybe he saw someone older than him do the same thing, and he thought that was a cool affectation. "i'll be the guy who guesses the name of popular things but never ...ever gets them right." and grandpa has just been faking it for years. they never just say, "i don't know what that is." it's always, "what is a 'flu fighter'? i don't care what a bernie baby is. words with what now? is that like scrabble?" ah, they are all so close. and that's key. there's a secret pride in getting it close enough to the word that people can guess it. "are you talking about facebook? is that why you keep saying you're not on fact bark?" "oh, that must be it, yes." right. i can see how you thought it might be fact bark. that term is thrown around nearly as much as the thing that has a billion members.