great minds

i was recently reading a friend's blog that touches on the worst-case scenarios she catches herself thinking about. morbid things like being pushed onto the subway tracks. while i don't think i've envisioned that particular scenario, i have thought about what i would do in the event that i found myself on the tracks and a train was coming. i know how far away the train would have to be to justify my trying to get out, or how close it would have to be to inspire me to lay down in the rat-infested depression between the tracks.

even as a little kid i would imagine morbid shit - horrible deaths for all the people that i loved; what my last words would be at their respective bedsides. in some cases what my last words would be from my own deathbed.

what a ridiculous and intimate thought to share so publicly, except that i heard a man sharing an almost identical thought on the radio. and it was at that point that i thought: if i can think of such a thing, there must be others, having the same, or at least comparably ridiculous, thoughts.

similarly, when listening to ellen degeneres talk about her experience using a toilet with automatic flushing capabilities i laughed uncontrollably because i identified with her story. she talked about how annoying it was to get up and not have the toilet sense her movement; it didn't flush when she was done. ellen preceded to imitate her attempt to "trick" it by pretending to sit down again and get up again. hoping it would engage those motion detectors. i laughed because her description was one of my own experience. and it must have been the experience of many others.

i think any art, including comedy, is about finding our common denominator.