Skill.

Last night, I went to a colleague’s house to farewell Sister Pharmacist. She was leaving the hospital as she had to go back to her hometown for surgery. Thus, a valid point for a potluck dinner and lots of laughing.

There were a few out of the main profession, like the VegeOT and me, of course, as the physio. But the rest of them were all pharmacists/pharmacy technicians.

And apparently, all of them knew that I danced.

They would blurt out, “Oh, you know, Paul is a dancer/Paul dances/Paul can really move.”

Something of that variety anyway.

And when they mentioned it, it would be spoken with a kind of wide-eyed wonder, as though I had the skill to turn my entire body inside out or swallow swords. Look, people, its not THAT rare a skill.

We also watched a comedian who did ventriloquism. And I mentioned that it would be a nice skill to pick up.

And then Lord Pharmacist, who perhaps in my opinion, is something no-nonsense to a T, exclaimed, “Why would you want to learn that? What’s the practical application for it?”

And I said, “It’s a skill to pick up. Just like dancing. No practical application in my field but its a SKILL to pick up. Besides, I think every man on earth should be capable of pulling off a half decent waltz at a wedding.”

Sometimes, we all learn different things just for the sake of it. We pick up Spanish, we learn to make a tree house, we learn to unclog plumbing, we learn to make a new dish, we learn to do handstands, we learn to do a new dance, we perhaps even pick up ventriloquism. How cool is ventriloquism if its for entertainment purposes? Or something you can do to amuse kids like magic tricks? Or a dance so that you don’t look like jiggling blow up doll on the dance floor? Does it matter whether or not it has practical application to it?

Besides, everyone has a hobby. Mine just happens to be dancing.

***

Was talking to Tofupuff and she queried the validity of the palm reading I had done.

I mean, who knows, right? Who knows what was going to happen? Who knows whether its going to be a guy or a girl or a drag queen or a biker chick or a little girl that was going to change my life’s direction?

I personally have never taken these predictions to heart. I used to read my horoscope’s for fun when I was in the butchery, as when you sat down during morning tea, one of the meat packers would always read out people’s horoscopes and we would all contemplate what was going to happen throughout the day. I’ve had my palm read by the Speech Language Therapist previously in this post where I was predicted to be fertile enough to father a child.

I can slightly understand why people do this. Getting their palms read, I mean. Its a prediction of the future, knowing what was happening and then being able to prepare themselves for it. According to some websites on palmistry, the lines on your hands show you what has happened rather than what is to come. There may be a prediction or two but mostly, it talks about what has happened before. Hands are something we use everyday without thinking about it. And I’ve had a few predictions that were as true as daylight.

Sometimes, my future is so uncertain that it scares the fscking shit out of me.

Its perhaps the understanding that there is a Supreme Being in charge that would monitor the situation and even if there is NO Supreme Being, its not so much that there is no one to blame, more like at least I know I’m heading somewhere rather than nowhere, I’m aiming for something I don’t quite understand or know, but hey, I’m alive, I’m kicking, I’m walking and eventually, I’ll get there.

I know how I’m going to end, anyway.