Snoring.
Snoring - go on; say 'snoring.' And again. And again. Play with the word; roll it around your mouth - sno-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-rrrr-ring.
Try it again.
I defy you to do this without a tiny twitch appearing at the corner of your mouth. A tiny twitch plus a slight wrinkling of the skin at the outer angles of your eyes. Why is snoring funny?
Why, for example, did I find it impossible to discuss snoring yesterday without smiling; in a professional situation where smiling was probably inappropriate? Snoring is funny. In the same way that everything about toilets is funny to a seven year old boy. It makes us smile; childishly. It's something only other people do; isn't it? It's funny! Unless you live with someone who snores. Or you are the snor-ee ... snor-er ... ? ... one who snores ... and live life in a permanent fog of day-time exhaustion.
Snoring is not restricted to humans.
Four-legged-friend and Bertie Baggins snore: they sprawl in front of the aga paws twitching as they chase a rabbit/fox/pigeon; facial muscles doing an Irish jig; muffled, whimpering barks as they bravely fend off haystacks-that-weren't-there-yesterday. Then, comes the snore and they're awake! And on their feet looking around for the 'Who', who did that! They always stretch after this, as if to say 'I'm fine, me - no I didn't just wake myself up snoring. No no no. I was about to get up anyway. Snoring - pah! Not me.' Or maybe I'm putting words in their mouths. Which would be pointless because they can't speak. They do however bark. Often in the middle of the night.
Which raises the question - is it better to be hauled from the realms of sleep by noisy snoring humans or barking dogs?
Hmm.
Maybe, consider it this way - think about the creators of the noise. The snorer who gets kicked. Or shoved. Or rolled off his back. Or smothered with the nearest pillow. The dogs who are let out. Chase the noisy fox out of the garden. Wake all the neighbours. And then, satisfied with a job well done, go back to bed. The person woken-up either commits a snoring-related murder or by being the owner of the dogs is responsible for waking the local babies, inserting baying hounds into neighbours' nightmares, teasing the cockerel that lives somewhere, and alarming the herd of deer sheltering beyond the fence. Deer have eyes. A whole herd of deer have dozens of them. All brightly still and staring in the torch-light. A sudden sea of eyes that makes the dog owner yelp in alarm.
The only beings that win here are the dogs.
... would I rather be woken by snoring or barking? Barking - every time. Despite the cold and often rain and staring deer eyes, when the dogs come back in, I can return to bed and sleep. Sleep - impossible next to a snorer.
Why am I writing a blog about snoring? Partly because snoring is funny but it also isn't funny and snor-ees need help and sympathy and arnica for the bruises on their legs. But also because I can't be bothered adding my voice to the shithole debate. I am fed up with being outraged. I have outrage fatigue.
Though ... returning to snoring - the dehydrating effect of the caffeine in 12 cans of diet coke a day and a body habitus that is more late-Brando than lithe-Al Pacino hint, perhaps, that the very stable genius snores. I wonder ... Bet that won't be mentioned in his medical report!
One final non-snoring-related point - I think 'stable genius' is an oxymoron. Stable implies a regularity of thought; unwavering, steadfast, concrete. Very unlikely, in fact, to drift off into inspired, out-of-the-box thinking. Stable suggests that the box is rigid, intransigent, hard-line, even mundane. Most geniuses are none of these things - they are unstable, dynamic, restless, quick thinkers who learn from their mistakes. To learn from one's mistakes, of course, would first require the stable genius to recognise and acknowledge them. Trying to lie one's way out of one's mistakes is not the mark of a genius. Unless we're talking evil ones ...
Snoring - go on; say 'snoring.' And again. And again. Play with the word; roll it around your mouth - sno-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-rrrr-ring.
Try it again.
I defy you to do this without a tiny twitch appearing at the corner of your mouth. A tiny twitch plus a slight wrinkling of the skin at the outer angles of your eyes. Why is snoring funny?
Why, for example, did I find it impossible to discuss snoring yesterday without smiling; in a professional situation where smiling was probably inappropriate? Snoring is funny. In the same way that everything about toilets is funny to a seven year old boy. It makes us smile; childishly. It's something only other people do; isn't it? It's funny! Unless you live with someone who snores. Or you are the snor-ee ... snor-er ... ? ... one who snores ... and live life in a permanent fog of day-time exhaustion.
Snoring is not restricted to humans.
Four-legged-friend and Bertie Baggins snore: they sprawl in front of the aga paws twitching as they chase a rabbit/fox/pigeon; facial muscles doing an Irish jig; muffled, whimpering barks as they bravely fend off haystacks-that-weren't-there-yesterday. Then, comes the snore and they're awake! And on their feet looking around for the 'Who', who did that! They always stretch after this, as if to say 'I'm fine, me - no I didn't just wake myself up snoring. No no no. I was about to get up anyway. Snoring - pah! Not me.' Or maybe I'm putting words in their mouths. Which would be pointless because they can't speak. They do however bark. Often in the middle of the night.
Which raises the question - is it better to be hauled from the realms of sleep by noisy snoring humans or barking dogs?
Hmm.
Maybe, consider it this way - think about the creators of the noise. The snorer who gets kicked. Or shoved. Or rolled off his back. Or smothered with the nearest pillow. The dogs who are let out. Chase the noisy fox out of the garden. Wake all the neighbours. And then, satisfied with a job well done, go back to bed. The person woken-up either commits a snoring-related murder or by being the owner of the dogs is responsible for waking the local babies, inserting baying hounds into neighbours' nightmares, teasing the cockerel that lives somewhere, and alarming the herd of deer sheltering beyond the fence. Deer have eyes. A whole herd of deer have dozens of them. All brightly still and staring in the torch-light. A sudden sea of eyes that makes the dog owner yelp in alarm.
The only beings that win here are the dogs.
... would I rather be woken by snoring or barking? Barking - every time. Despite the cold and often rain and staring deer eyes, when the dogs come back in, I can return to bed and sleep. Sleep - impossible next to a snorer.
Why am I writing a blog about snoring? Partly because snoring is funny but it also isn't funny and snor-ees need help and sympathy and arnica for the bruises on their legs. But also because I can't be bothered adding my voice to the shithole debate. I am fed up with being outraged. I have outrage fatigue.
Though ... returning to snoring - the dehydrating effect of the caffeine in 12 cans of diet coke a day and a body habitus that is more late-Brando than lithe-Al Pacino hint, perhaps, that the very stable genius snores. I wonder ... Bet that won't be mentioned in his medical report!
One final non-snoring-related point - I think 'stable genius' is an oxymoron. Stable implies a regularity of thought; unwavering, steadfast, concrete. Very unlikely, in fact, to drift off into inspired, out-of-the-box thinking. Stable suggests that the box is rigid, intransigent, hard-line, even mundane. Most geniuses are none of these things - they are unstable, dynamic, restless, quick thinkers who learn from their mistakes. To learn from one's mistakes, of course, would first require the stable genius to recognise and acknowledge them. Trying to lie one's way out of one's mistakes is not the mark of a genius. Unless we're talking evil ones ...
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