(“Mission Control, Mission Control.” Squelch of mic, voice with that weird muffled sound they get from space. “This is Body speaking. FEED me. Over and out.” scrrttcchh! scrrttcch! Body thumbing mic.)
Okay, I’m getting the picture. Body is dumb. Dumber than we realized. Actually, we knew it all along; we’re just realizing it. Body can kick some asp. He’s truly the heavyweight. He’s the only one who can kill us. Literally! (okay, yeah, so we’ve almost killed him . . . um, many times.) It’s a wonder he ain’t dead yet. Tough ol’ you-know-what. Silly bird.
But despite the dumb body, we’re dumber than him.
We don’t pay too much attention to body. He’s – she, it, her, him something else: a dumb thing. And that’s a problem. For us. The body don’t care. Like I said: it has no voice. Literally. The body can’t think. Which means – visualizing that old joke where someone pinches your head on a camera – all of me and all of us are confined to a spot in my skull. Actually, given how much of the actual brain is used for processing the body vs. ME – I’m rather small. No wonder so many people seem to have reptilian brains in their heads, huh? I’ve come to find that fascinating. Myself included. (ooo! ooo! He’s into self-fascination! Narcissist complex!) No I’m NOT! It’s just I’ve got a small brain, too. Probably smaller than I think. Actually, just a spoon of myself in there. Who knows? Such a small space for such a lot of room. (Picturing the universe of places I keep within me; one of them a beautiful world . . . sigh of contentment here as I ‘look’ there. Thank you, psychologist, wherever you are.)
Anyway . . .
We tend to ignore the body. Sometimes really bad. Which, in the body’s opinion – yes it can speak through FEELINGS – some of them aches and pains – is better than cutting the thing or mucking it up. Its seen plenty of that happen, courtesy of my selves. You should see my wrist and arms. Never mind; I’m not going to show them to you. Parts of me are ashamed. (There goes that social stigma thing again! You B**ds! (Imagine what the kids say when Kenny dies.)
Anyway . . .
We tend to ignore the body. Not feeding it – sometimes for a day, maybe two, as much as three. Basically not feeding it nowadays: I used to have a weight problem; I’m down to my 17 year old height and a little below my weight back then. I’m supposed to say, “I’m feelin’ goooooooood.” in that deep down black south voice of which I can only make a pale white man’s imitation. Anyway, it wouldn’t work. This body doesn’t make me feel ‘gooooooood’ anymore. Instead its kinda mucked up. Aches and pains and that sort of thing. But otherwise it doesn’t complain – and we tend to ignore it.
Not a good thing.
Someone’s got to take care of the body, and I find I’m doing it myself. No ones chipping in; no ones monitoring for health and good signs of vitality. Health is an issue, in more ways than one. (Thinking about the mental things here.) But I’m okay with it. Sure, I struggle like an old mother hen keeping and cleaning up after her kids. Lately I’ve been loosing weight while we sing (here I think “The Body Electric”, old great book) – anyway, “Jeff’s Song” – we’ve been doing it. Ignoring the body again.
Parts beam with pride (some of them) that we’ve lost weight. The truth of it is that I weigh less than when I was seventeen. And I’m old now. (Or at least I think I do. I’m suspecting it’s gonna get lot worse.)
Anyway, old mother hen is back in again, seeing her hen house cracking. Gotta go; feed it something. The body that is – and seeing myself herding chicks in my mind.
See ya!
Oh, and by the way: This was written by the Controller. 
