with your basement movie friends.
AWESOME!
Your tongue
Babies are funny.
While I was zooming down the highway with my friend Agostino recently he broke into a story about his one-year-old daughter. Apparently while feeding her a bowl of mushy peas she suddenly started sticking her tongue out, slowly and suspiciously peering down at it, and then wiggling it around.
It was like she suddenly came to the starstruck realization that âI can control this thing!â
And what an amazing day that must be, for you , for me, for anybody. After all, we grow up inside these flabby blobs of flexy muscles, whirring organs, and gurgling body parts, and then discover what everything does along the way.
The mysteries of your tongue are sort of discovered along the way too. And what beautiful mysteries they are:
1. Tongue got your cat . Yes, the muscles at the back of your tongue help make certain sounds while talking like hard g âs and c âs. Try saying the word go or cat really slowly and youâll feel that pink puppy push across the roof of your mouth.
2. Bubble blower. Hey, that wad of chewing gum ainât gonna balloon into a thin nâ shaky pink bubble on its own.
3. Whistle while you work. Think of your mouth like the cold garage where your lips and tongue come together to jam after school. Your lips make a small opening and your tongue gets the bumping grooves going. Also works for singing.
4. Taste the rainbow. When youâre a one-year-old baby youâve got around ten thousand taste buds covering your tongue and when youâre a wrinkly old fart youâve got around five thousand. These tiny flavor detectors are why mushy bananas and macaroni taste so good when youâre a kid and bloody steaks and olives do the job when youâre older. On top of all that, your tongue helps move food to your teeth and then down the gully for digestion. Itâs basically the whistle-blowing traffic cop of your body.
5. Clean your fur. If your entire body is covered in fur your tongue helps you clean off instead of taking a bath.
6. French kissing . Apparently swapping spit is a common gesture of affection throughout the animal kingdom, as lovers kiss with their tongues in jungles, deserts, and bat caves throughout the world. Evolutionary biologist Thierry Lode even argues that tongue kissing has a real functionâto explore a partnerâs immune system through their saliva. Yeah, I know: hot.
Once upon a time you discovered your tongue with a profound sense of eye-widening wonder and amazement. Over time you began using its magical powers to try new foods, learn how to speak, sing in the car, or snuggle up with a young love.
So today give three cheers to that fleshy pink slab of greatness sitting inside your hot, disgusting mouth . Use its noble powers to sit back and scream forward one big booming word with me ...
AWESOME!
When your friend makes sure you get into the house safe after dropping you off at the end of the night
When your friend drops you off after a lazy hazy night, itâs always nice when they sit with their engine quietly revving till you get in the door. And when you pop it open, make sure to wave back so they can bee-beep or flash their headlights to say good night before quietly drifting away down the dark suburban roads ...
AWESOME!
Accidentally doing something really good in sports
Iâm terrible at sports.
When I was a kid I retired from soccer after just one season. In my final game I took a booted ball right to the face which snapped my glasses in two and caused me to crash to the field in a wet, goobery mess. Unfortunately, since we were low on players and couldnât forfeit the big playoff game, I was forced to hang out on the field, blind and drippy, until the whistle blew.
And it wasnât just soccer either. I hung up the cleats after a season of baseball too . Somehow I managed to bat fourteenth in the lineup and lead my team in hit by pitches .
Leslie Glass
Ian M. Dudley
Julie Gerstenblatt
Ruth Hamilton
Dana Bate
Ella Dominguez
Linda Westphal
Keri Arthur
Neneh J. Gordon
April Henry