Hummers and other things

I was looking out my kitchen window Saturday afternoon, thinking I ought to take down my last hummingbird feeder since I hadn't seen any hummers for more than a week--and damn if one didn't fly up just then and start battling with a bee for a place at the feeder. I felt very guilty that the nectar hadn't been changed in days. I put out some fresh juice, and he came right back. He spent most of the afternoon eating.

This happens almost every year. Just when I think I'm finished feeding hummers I get a straggler who decides he likes it here. (FYI, according to bird experts, feeding hummingbirds does not discourage them from migrating. In fact, it aids their survival during migration. Some of them are just pokier than others, and they'll move on when they get ready.) I really don't mind cooking for one, although it's always slightly distressing to see the little guys hanging around in the cold. I kinda hope he clears out before we go to Scotland










Image from Apollonius.net

After I took care of the bird, I drove to a shopping strip in a little city west of here. There's a tiny department store there with a Lauder counter, and I was looking for some Cinnabar lotion. They didn't have any, but I did find a penis in the parking lot. Actually, I think it would be safe to assume there were a number of penises attached to their owners in the parking lot, but there was one just lying on the pavement unsupervised. Okay, some kid had spray-painted PENIS very neatly at the end of a parking space; but, as Charles Peirce explained and the kid instinctively knew, sign and object are not really separable.

It was one of those baffling graffiti moments: Why is this here, and what does it mean? If I'd seen it on the street in Chicago I'd immediately assume some snarky little art student had been at work, but there aren't any snarky little art students in Dickson, Tn. This was the work of a kid--well, I hope it was a kid--simply expressing himself. (Or herself. I think it was a boy, though, because a girl would write in pretty cursive and put a heart-shaped dot over the "i." And she'd write Vagina in the next parking space with another heart-shaped dot. Girls are very holistic in their thinking.)

It got me thinking about how the penis, as word and thing, is still regarded with such superstition. It's sort of the last taboo. Think about it. The V word is all over the place. We've got The Vagina Monologues, and there's a steady stream of plain-speaking ads on TV for ways to cure whatever ails your vagina: vaginal dryness, vaginal odor, vaginal yeast infections.

Where are The Penis Confessions? And how come the little blue pill is for "erectile" dysfunction? You don't pop the Cialis because your erection is dysfunctional, but because it's non-existent. It's the penis that's dysfunctional. So why not say that? Maybe because it would remind us that the penis not a magic wand or an overseer's weapon, just a part of the human body. We can't have that, can we?

I feel a lot of sympathy for the little vandal who left his penis in the parking lot. He just wants a bit of respect and recognition for the appendage nature gave him. He's trying to reclaim the worth of his body, and reject the false currency of cars, guns and paychecks. You go, honey.