So I’m sitting here watching Animal Planet, some survivors attack stories and I have to say I don’t have sympathy for some of these people. There is the fellow in Florida who went swimming in the pond behind his house. Why is this silly you ask? Because he was attacked by a gator! In Florida! I’m not surprised by this. You couldn’t pay me enough money to swim in a pond in Florida. If a baby were drowning I might just say so long kid. There are gators everywhere in Florida; who goes swimming there?

And then there is the surfer in South Africa who was attacked by not one, but two great white sharks simultaneously. Where was he surfing? Not in Michigan where there are no sharks, not even in, oh, Ireland where there aren’t any sharks, but off a known reef where great whites hang out and feed constantly. Where seven surfers have died from shark attacks already. I have a hard time finding sympathy for this fellow who felt surfing here was a good idea. Who still surfs there.

Sometimes I stand at the lip of a volcano and look over at the liquid, hot, magma and decide it is not a good idea to go swimming. I feel good about that decision. So I have to ask myself, why do other people seem so immune to good sense?

Luckily for the surfer, two sharks attacked him at the same time and this perhaps saved his life. Now that qualifies as irony. I am flabbergasted by the people on the Animal Planet. Flabbergasted!

I’ll tell you who I have sympathy for. I feel bad for the man who was mauled by a hippo. That guy was just kayaking in Africa and some feisty hippo took offense. I feel bad for that guy. There’s no accounting for a hippo’s temperament. And when was the last time anyone was hunted by a hippo? No one expects that. He didn’t deserve to be shown up by a hippo.

My roommate just brought up an interesting scenario, though. Crocodile versus the Great White. I’m feeling that the croc has a significant advantage over the shark myself—the shark only has the one set of teeth and they’re really disadvantaged by the oversized nose. The croc on the other hand can just take bites out of the shark and have at it. Now, it should be remembered that the shark is feisty and won’t go down easy. It is entirely possible the shark would just toss the croc up in the air and start taking bites out of the underbelly. We’ll have to conceive of that showdown in more detail later.

Last I leave you with this thought. The odds might be in your favor, animals might only attack 1 out of every 100 people, but it doesn’t matter if you are the 1. And if you see the shark giving you the eye and decide to go swim with it anyway, I feel no sorrow for you when it takes a nibble that just happens to be your arm.

So I was totally going to whine about why I am unloved and unloveable, but then I read on msnbc that the two-headed, eight year old snake “We” died today. Go here http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19334041/?GT1=10056 to read more about it. I think talking about the two-headed snake is much more useful.

First off, it had both male and female genitalia; they had tried unsuccessfully to breed it with another two-headed snake previously and were going to try again this summer. Which genitals do you use? Both? Alternating? How does one decide? Flip a coin? Most importantly, however, is the fact that this snake is two-headed. Bleh! Because one head isn’t bad enough it needs to have two? Granted, the picture isn’t all that intimidating and because it was reported to “try to slither in two directions at once” I think I would most likely point and laugh as opposed to shudder, but the principle remains. Two heads on one body equates with a phobia and a half. I have a shudder just thinking about it.

And I have to wonder what it is about snakes that bothers me so? I watched a special on the History channel long, long ago describing snake phobia in our culture as being extremely high—they conjectured it had something to do with the religious symbolism of snakes in our predominately Christian culture. I figure that might have something to do with it, but I would place my bet more on the sheer…difference of snakes from people. When I was little and my family would go to the Children’s Museum in Indianapolis there was usually a python you could pet in one of the rooms. Every year I would make myself touch it and every year I seemed okay. As soon as it wasn’t there for me to touch I remember my fear nearly overtaking me. I have an easier time walking by rabid, barking dogs than I do a snake sunning itself on a rock. Isn’t irrational fear grand?

But on the flip side, while I am petrified of snakes I’m also incredibly fascinated by them. I can’t look away—I seek them out in movies and educational specials. Joy Harjo talks about having a vision one night where a giant Cobra appears to her and she isn’t scared because she recognizes it as the spirit animal of her sacred feminine. When I read that I remember thinking my sacred feminine is screwed because I would so freak out and possibly urinate on myself. But maybe not—what if a snake is the representation of my feminine half and on some level I know it? Does that mean I am fascinated because of it but repulsed by the reality that is a snake? Or does it mean I’m at war with my feminine side?

Sorry, didn’t mean to take this conversation there exactly—that’s a whole other blog that would take significant thought and space to talk through. In a nutshell I would admit it’s both, but I’m not going to clarify just yet. In the end I have neither an answer to why snakes fascinate and repulse me nor why no one wants to make sweet, sweet love to me. I have contemplations I think I will engage in concerning female culture and male culture but those too belong in another blog. In the meantime I go to Maine soon and then Vegas. If someone did love me I wouldn’t be around long enough to enjoy it anyway so I suppose it’s just as well.

I still have hope, though, that tomorrow I will wake up Catwoman with Batman by my side. Hey, a girl’s gotta dream.

So I have figured it out! I now know where my obsession with the bad boy, psycho-killer comes from. Care Bears II! It all goes back to Darkheart baby. That’s right. He’s oh so bad, oh so evil, but in the end he cares. He cares and then he’s good and then he loves! Yeah for the good guys!!

It’s been awhile since I wrote anything up here and I felt the discovery of Darkheart as my first love worthy of sharing. I’m not proud of it, but I feel I should own up to it. Oh yeah, and he wears a red jumpsuit for most of the movie (when he’s not an animal) so I blame Darkheart for all my sketchy tastes and possible issues with bestiality. Just kidding, honest!

So my other thought I wanted to share stems from the proclivity of “universal” positions. Specifically, there’s a Master of the Universe, and a Defender of the Universe, but what about the Groundskeeper of the Universe? Or the Janitor of the Universe? Why isn’t there a cartoon about that guy? Do you think you get a flashy sword, a hip theme song and to shape-change if you’re a groundskeeper or janitor too? I think you should. It’s a thankless job and the least you could ask for is a flashy sword and a hip theme song.

These are my thoughts for you all right now. It’s not much I grant you, but I invite any of your thoughts concerning the Janitor of the Universe and possible theme songs.

I care!