but…uh…

If you’ve ever found yourself bored with the bulletproof accuracy and scientific rigor of horoscopes, I suggest you give biorhythms a shot.

Biorhythms. I haven’t thought about these things once since learning to plot and compare them at some point in middle school. They’re one of those peculiar things buried deep enough in the grey matter to avoid recall, but always at the ready to be recognized when least expected. Like yesterday, when searching for Konfabulator widgets and finding one designed to track the emotional, physical, and mental cycles that were started on the day of my birth.

Interest piqued, some reading and Googling refreshed my memory. A biorhythm is based on the idea that your body undergoes a natural, predictable cycle that can foretell the highs and lows among 3 different axis. The complication is that each factor is a sine wave running at it’s own speed. 23 days for the physical, 28 for the emotional and 33 for the intellectual. The times when your cycles are all high, you’re firing on all cylinders and life is good. When low, the doldrums are at hand. In between you get all sorts of complicated variations based on the addition of sine waves that only repeat as a group every 58 years or so.

The site I went to for my free biorhythm reading also offers the option to check your biorhythmic compatibility with a number of celebrities as well as with non-celebrities, if you happen to know their birthday. While I’m sure that Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Garner will be sad to know that I think our 94% matches are pure bunk, the idea behind this feature got me thinking about the idea of compatibility and what that really means. At this site, they compare how often the 2 biorhythms line up in each of the 3 categories. Since the overall length of each person’s cycle is the same, there is no variation over time when comparing one factor. For example, if your physical lines are completely out of alignment, they will match only the very small percentage of time when passing each other on the way from top to bottom and never come into alignment. This would be considered a bad match. The idea here is that the more often your rhythms are aligned, the more often you will be experiencing highs and lows of yourself and the relationship at the same time and will thus be more compatible.

At first blush this seems to make perfect sense. It would seem to be bad news if every time one person was feeling frisky the other had a headache or something like that. However, further examination of the composite curves leads me to another conclusion.

When the 2 cycles are most matched, this leads to wild combined swings in the composite curve. The highs are really high and the lows are really low. That may make for some excitement but what does it mean at the low points? If both people are feeling angry or distant, what keeps it all together? Where is the steady, guiding hand?

When the cycles are offset, the combined waves dampen each other and minimize the wild swings from high to low. When one person is perhaps least able to find emotional fortitude, the other has an excess in that area to draw from and cross that distance. Sort of the metaphysical equivalent of the cheesy Jesus "Footprints" poem. In this scenario, only one person is going crazy at a time and there is always someone manning the wheel. Each person takes turns keeping it all together.

I don’t know. While I have about as much faith in biorhythms predicting a successful relationship as numerology, it does make one examine which sorts of things should be valued in a partner.

Then again, maybe I’m just rationalizing.

"Damned is the world that exchanges the possibility of dying of starvation for the certainty of dying of boredom."

I saw this written on the bathroom wall of the musty, Memphis used book store, Burke’s Book. While not usually in the habit of snapping photographs in public restrooms, I really liked this sentiment. There is just something so insidious about the ease at which people in the world, and particularly this country, are willing to trade away everything they have for a little "security" and "safety." They might as well be trading for Santa Claus and the tooth fairy. At least for those two you don’t need to rely on terrifying people to make them seem desirable.

As we move into hour 27 of no cable modem, or what I like to call "America’s National Crisis," the sense of loss is palpable. I’ve always been fascinated by competing cliches and no more than this pair:

1. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
2. Out of sight, out of mind.

When it comes to broadband access, or internet access of any kind for that matter, #1 is clearly the winner here. When easy, pervasive access isn’t there I realize how much I thrive on instant access to the resources provided by distant servers. The luddites in the world who feel that the internet is primarily for porn and bomb making instructions will never understand. I’m not sure I can even explain it. I can’t seem to have a thought enter my brain that doesn’t finally exit with some sort of action that would normally be accomplished on the internet.

• Hey! Is that the actress from that other movie?
• I need to get that used book for 1/2 off.
• What’s the number for customer service?
• Is that new movie getting good reviews?
• Can I really afford to go to the movies?
• Is it a new Arrested Development this week?
• No crushed tomatoes? I wish I had a recipe for a good pasta sauce without tomatoes.
• Is there a nearby place to get an oil change?
• How do you spell onomatopoeia?

I know there are lots of archaic ways to accomplish these feats (phone books, newspapers, Ken Jennings) but when you aren’t set up to use them, it’s more hassle than it’s worth. It becomes much easier to sit in front of the television and do nothing. Maybe it is just rationalizing being lazy but I don’t think so. Last night by 9pm or so I found myself contemplating going to bed. For a night owl like me it is ridiculous but what else can I do? It was sort of like Little House on the Prairie. There is only so long you can study by candlelight so you turn in early just like Pa and Half-Pint. In fact, I’d rather not have electricity and be warmed by the glow of my battery operated, broadband connected monitor. I know it seems silly to be sounding off on this considering I am sitting at Otherlands using their free WiFi while sucking down a latte but when comforts become necessities it hurts when they are removed.