Dirt-y Thoughts

"Were we not so uncomfortable with sexual organs the study of mammalian penises would delight us. [...]




"A human penis is blunt and simple compared to those of other mammals. Of course, the fact that ours are not withdrawn safely into a sheath 'when not in use' (as one dictionary delicately puts it) puts a premium on implicitly and smoothness. An opossum, on the other hand, sports a two-petaled penis that looks like a dolphin's open mouth. [...]" (Logan, p.83)



I, like a middle-schooler, found this little paragraph delightfully scandalous. I even took the time to text it to my boyfriend just now, chuckling to myself about it's validity in a book about Dirt in a course about Architectural Theory. I wasn't going to blog about it for this reason and then decided that if this is what caught my attention and intrigued me, then I should explore it. Screw inappropriateness, awkwardness, and hesitation.



In my middle school, sexual education was taught by my science teacher Mr. Parlier. He sweat profusely and had a disproportionate belly and white, white hair. He had no tolerance for immaturity. So when he thrust his pelvis forward, indicating with sweaty arms where the female fallopian tubes are located on his figure...I, apparently, was immature. I did 'the eyes.' He told me he was giving me a detention and asked if I had knew what I had done. (I had a detention free record, detentions terrified me because they labeled me a 'rebel' and it was proof that I hadn't done everything right.) I said I hadn't known, he told me I did 'the eyes,' and I said I didn't know what 'the eyes' were. With this, he asked fellow sixth-grader Sarah if she could tell me about 'the eyes' and she told him she didn't known either. He looked at me, darted his eyes, raised his eyebrows a couple times at me and nodded his head in satisfaction.



I suppose when he had started the lesson, I had searched for, with my eyes, some sort of camaraderie in the awkwardness and absurdity of the class (him teaching this lesson to us). When you are in middle school and are taught sexual education, there is this crazy emphasis on 'maturity,' something apparently non-existent in someone looking around/giggling/smiling/squirming. As if, ten years later as a 'grown-up,’ after actually using/touching our sexual organs for things like sex and pleasure (not procreation yet!), I've 'matured.' I'd still get a detention.



I go back and forth on my feelings about my body and how I, and others, should treat it and understand it. My body is 'holey.' in the sense that literally, there are holes, and humans, according to Logan, have an immense curiosity/sense of discovery associated with them. The implications and correlations with gardening that he talked about are soooo appropriate...my body is like an erotic garden. My body is also 'holy,' (I couldn't resist!) in the sense that it is sacred and divine. It's a temple, my space of prayer. My body is a perfect tool for everything I want to do, I'm just learning how to wield it most efficiently and appropriately. It is art, science, genius--ahhh, etc. etc. These ideas and feelings about my body constantly rotate and flip-flop, super fast. It is the embodiment of my existence, the threshold between ego/all non-visible worlds and the real/physical world. What happens physically in my life has a profound effect on how I take in and process everything going on, how could it not? And how much control (if any?) do I have over these flip-flops and rotations of feelings?...which brings me to the next Logan quote, a couple paragraphs later in the chapter:

"Indeed, the pull of the moon exerts a far more obvious effect upon a woman than a man. Menstruation provides an exquisitely sensitive organic calendar. [...]"



This doesn't seem far-fetched, it seems true. But for some reason I never really thought about it. My body, beyond my control or understanding, is functioning within the world.

A woman's period is this weird thing because it is like this underground body calendar. I think most women can acknowledge that being around other women adjusts their own cycle. It's like grandfather clocks; if the clocks are all in the same space, eventually the ticks and tocks will be synched.



We've developed crazy precise measurements to ensure that every second, by definition, is the exact same length as every other second; that minutes and hours never change. But this hyper control over our own time we then have to amend and align with solar, planetary, lunar times...because these flex. We understand that despite our controlled and consistent system, the flexible one is more important and more accurate. So we come up with precise and exacting ways to adjust and amend ours. We calculate our own hiccups.



"The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He has a fine Geneva watch, but he fails of the skill to tell the hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac he has, and so being sure of the information when he wants it, the man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his mind." - Emerson, from Self-Reliance



I build up this nostalgia for classic and mystical knowledge of the world. I go about accepting things I don't understand or don't make sense to me with as much confidence and assurance as I do with the things that I do understand and do make sense. I accept a large level of mystery or faith. Maybe I think those things are beyond comprehension, or maybe I'm just scared to explore them deeper with my own mind, or, just maybe I let little things get in the way of all the bigger things going on around me because they are more immediate, in my face...it's easier.