The Way My Mind Works

     I think.  I think a lot.  This morning in particular I took note of how strange my line of thinking usually is.  I start thinking about one topic and somehow my mind meanders to really strange topics most of the time. This is an example.
     Tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo and so therefore this morning I was thinking about my plans.  Next I started thinking about what I did for Cinco de Mayo last year.  My best friend (at the time) and I went to a Mexican restaurant and drank some Coronas.  It was a typically American way to celebrate.  I thought about my life situation at the time:  I was leaving for Thailand in about ten days, I was still working at the mortgage company, and I had just returned from visiting my friends in LA.
     Now, while on this trip, I met a tall, muscular, blue-eyed Australian guy.  Multiple drinks were consumed, laughs shared, and to make a long story short he ended up returning with me to my friend's apartment.  Not that I need to defend my actions, but I will say that this is not my typical behavior.  So, please don't think that.  The combination of Tequila, big blue eyes and a delicious Australian accent made me a little bit more daring than usual.  Plus, I was on vacation. What happens in LA stays in LA.
     Wait.  No.  That's Vegas.  And this is my life we're talking about.  Nothing is ever that simple with me.  Well, come to find out, he was vacationing in LA, then headed to Kentucky for the Kentucky Derby then moving to Boston for the entirety of the summer.  What a coincidence.  Before parting ways I wrote my name and phone number on a napkin.  I just assumed he would lose it and I would never hear from him again.  That's how one-night stands work, right?  Nope.  Not for me.  About a week or so later I got a call from a strange number and answered it.  The voice on the other end of the line was Australian.  I thought it was nice that he showed interest in developing a relationship or whatever, but I knew that I was going to be moving to the opposite end of the world within less than a month.  What would the sense in that be?  My phone was constantly ringing, everywhere I went he would show up.  It was totally creepy.  Anyways, I guess I thought about him this morning because on Cinco de Mayo last year he was texting me all night.
     Anyways, as I proceeded to think about this guy, I began thinking about why I generally avoid one-night stands.  It's pretty obvious: I'm terrified of contracting an STD.  I might think about this or be more afraid of this than the average person, actually.  My usual behavior is fairly precautious and I'm not a complete idiot about the things (or people) that I do.  But still, take one sex-ed class, mix the pictures they show you with my over-active mind and your fears might become irrational as well.  I then remembered an acronym that my friend created and uses whenever anyone in our group is contemplating getting naughty with a new person.  The acronym is WABS.
     W stands for "worms."  My friend who thought of this thinks penises look like worms, and worms are just gross. Stay away.  A is for AIDS.  Obviously not something you want.  B stands for "babies."  Of course, we're not married and having a kid right now would just be wrong.  The S stands for "syphilis." This last one I, personally, think is a little strange.  In the developed world syphilis is no longer a problem.  It's completely curable, easily detectable, etc.  Got syphilis?  Take Penicillin. Done. Problem solved.  I suppose some people must contract it, but it's certainly not the pandemic that it used to be.  And it's just a weird disease.  You can get skin lesions, go blind, go crazy, and your body can even become morphed and contorted. Ew. I definitely don't want that.
     Ok, so this is where it gets interesting.  I started thinking about famous people that died of Syphilis.  I feel like that's one of those diseases that caused death in an abnormally high number of famous people from the past.  I knew Van Gogh had Syphilis.  Nietzsche had it.  A lot of famous philosophers and artists had it for some reason.  Here are a few people who had (or whom people speculate had) syphilis:

Christopher Columbus (along with a large number of his crewmen who accompanied him to the New World)

Al Capone (I always just figured he was shot, but ok)

Napoleon

Vincent Van Gogh

Friedrich Nietzsche

Henry VIII

Winston Churchill

Beethoven

Hitler and Mussolini (that's a weird trend...)

Vladimir Lenin (this information was discovered later, by outside sources since, for obvious political reasons, the people of Soviet Russia were not told this information)

Howard Hughes*


     I must say I was pretty shocked by some of these names.  Apparently before the discovery of Penicillin, this disease was pretty common.  I even read somewhere that some of the remains of the ancient Romans who died in the volcanic eruption at Pompeii showed signs of the disease.

     I have no idea why I find this so fascinating.  I also don't know how my mind manages to do things like transition from Cinco de Mayo to syphilis.  Maybe I'm weird.  Not maybe, definitely, but whatever.

     Here's one more example of the strange things I think:  So, my roommate bought a new stick of deodorant.  It's part of a new line from Old Spice and is called "Fiji."  It claims to smell like "palm trees, sunshine, and freedom."  My first thought was "what on earth do sunshine and freedom smell like?"  What would a logical person do?  Open it and take a whiff.  Did I?  Of course not.  I closed my eyes and pictured a warm sandy beach, bright sunshine and a total lack of responsibility.  This put a smile on my face.  I closed the door of our medicine cabinet, leaving the deoderant unopened and un-smelled.  Every day since then, I look at this item and conjure up my picture of "sunshine and freedom."  I've reached the point where I'm not actually interested in what the smell is, but every morning I bask in my contemplation thereof.  Being easily amused can lead you to find happiness in the smallest of things.




*Above information found at http://www.articledoctor.com/diseases-stds/famous-people-with-stds-1320