The Black Hole Ate Moi's Homework

I read a statistic once that postulated that before we die, each of us spends on average, like, 1.5 bazillion hours of our lives either standing in line or waiting for service. Which is fine with me, because, hell, when else would I catch up on my crap magazine reading?

Some places, though, are better than others. At the top of my list: the Jiffy Lube on the corner of Menaul and Wyoming in Albuquerque's Northeast Heights. For a place run entirely by dudes, they nonetheless know their market and thus stock a wide variety of the best evah magazines ranging from the most up-to-date Peoples in existence (no six month lag for these guys, oh no) to Time, Newsweek, O, and even Vogue. Not a snooze-a-mooze parenting magazine in sight. No offense to parents, but really, if you're childless or empty-nested, not even the ads are interesting. And if you're a parent, I suspect the last thing you want to read about is even MORE parenting stuff. Admit it: You'd rather read about Jessica Simpson's botched boob job.

At the bottom of my list: my gyno. Whose magazine selection is all about the OB and never about the GYN. And if you're 5.7 minutes away from having yourself poked and prodded in that particular manner, you want aspirational magazines out in the waiting room. Not ones that remind you of why you're here. Listen, you OB/GYN magazine Nazis: we all know how we got here. So now, take us far, far away. Architectural Digest would be good. And heck, forget Vogue, if that's too much for you. Mademoiselle will do in a pinch. Can't go that girly? How about Golf magazine, fer crying out loud. But my gyno, despite my most gentle encouragements, never catches on. He just smiles and nods in that way that tells me when I open my mouth, all he hears is Charlie Brown's parents. Men.

Anyway, yesterday was doc appointment time por Moi and while in my dermo, I was happily heartened to spot this:



Nah, it wasn't Dwayne Johnson that caught my eye. Although I guess you could make a case for his sex appeal in that shiny-suited, head-to-toe reconstructed way today's porn stars are considered sexy, only minus the highlights and tacky-ass French manicure. I likewise spent only a couple seconds perusing Laird Hamilton's "Surf God Workout." Sweet jeebus, I thought only women were susceptible to fairytale bullshit about our bodies. The workout? Puhleeze. AB could eat Laird for lunch.

Nope, the article that caught my really real attention was on Garrett Lisi, a surf bum physicist who has come up with a totally new unifying theory of the universe that he calls E8, which basically says, String Theory, Schming Theory, where it's at is this: fitting together the four forces of physics — electromagnetic, strong nuclear, weak nuclear, and gravity — into an incredibly intricate shape that looks like something you might have created with your Advanced Spirograph kit in the fourth grade.

Another thing about Moi: I'm obsessed with the Big Picture. Every time one of those PBS specials on the universe comes on, I'm glued to the set. But this, ugh, I'm going to need years to grok to this particular bit of information. Go check it out for yourself and maybe together we can process all this into some cohesive understanding.

And while you're at it; riddle me this: Ever since S.B. installed satellite radio in the Mini Coop, it seems I hear Tori Amos's "Cornflake Girl", like, sixty bazillion times a day. So if you can get a finger's grasp on what Lisi is on to, can you perhaps explain to Moi just what in the hell the woman is talking about in this song?