Waiting for the punchline
The last few days have been wrapped in irony and strange postmodern juxtapositions.
Visiting Glenwood Springs, the home of one of the only naturally occurring vapor caves in the world and a “hot bed” of hot springs and the spas that go with them, we learned that none other than Doc Holliday died there. Evidently he was seeking a remedy for his tuberculosis. Ironically, it was the very sulfur-infused waters in which he sought his refuge that accelerated his death.
Still, there is something romantic about the intellectual gunslinger. How does an educated dentist become a professional gambler and one of the fastest draws in the west?
Historians made the leap that it might have something to do with the fact that people don’t like going to dentists who are coughing blood and otherwise looking like death warmed over. TB isn’t a big hit with clients, it turns out.
So many films have been made of him. A witty, latin-spewing, thin rail of a man who enjoyed saying things like: I’m your huckleberry. I think I might start saying that myself. Or at least attempt to work it into a conversation just to see if I can.
But the health-seeking deathbed of a famous gunslinger isn’t the only oddity of the week. Yesterday we visited the Denver Aquarium.
On its surface, that might not seem so strange but I couldn’t help but wonder of the sharks, jellyfish and otters knew they were suspended in tanks some 5,280 feet above sea level. And then there was the tiger. Four, to be precise. I’m still not entirely sure what tigers are doing in an aquarium. They are the only “non-water” creature there so there is no apparent rational reason for it.
But the moment that grabbed me with a certain uneasiness occurred over lunch. The restaurant at the aquarium is surrounded by huge tanks of fish…from groupers to nurse sharks. Guess what kind of restaurant it is.
Yup. Seafood.
I can’t help but wonder if there is any other place on earth that is so strange. A fish living a mile above sea level destined for a life watching his kind get eaten.
It was still a freakin’ cool aquarium. One of the best I’ve been to. And I’ve been to a lot of aquariums.
All of this to say that there seems to be a theme. A theme that is forcing me to wrap my head around the occasional irony and absurdity of life. Having been on this journey now for seven months, in search of the next big thing, creating a virtual business along the way, I sense a punchline coming up.
I can’t wait to start laughing.
