The 2007 New Websters Dictionary defines $5.62 as “five hundred and sixty two pennies” or “a unit of American currency that is expressed as 5 31/50″.  Fuck if I know what that means to me, but I got a pair of Levi’s jeans with the number 501 stitched into them.  I don’t think that makes me especially cool or anything, but those jeans did give me urticaria.  Did you know that Saloth Sar had psoriasis?  Yep, he had skin like a crocodile.  I just looked up “psoriasis” to see how it is spelled and I saw some really gross pictures.  Ish. I guess that was my comic opening.

In March of 2006 I paid $150 dollars for a metal yo-yo.  It’s become something of an addiction for me and I’m starting to have trouble with it.  The yo-yo was beautiful, it was a modified raw Eetsit that had been lathed to modify the bearing seat and response system.  The company that modified them was called “Yes, Absolutely” and they had purchased the raw Eetsits from “Anti-Yo”.  Yes, Absolutely released only 25 of these yo-yos and they called them “The End”.  Today that yo-yo has a lot of dings and scratches in it’s amortization and even a little wobble.  With a dash of irony “The End” was just the beginning of splurging on high end yo-yos.

A Buddhist monk once wrote “as skillful behavior becomes second nature and you develop more sensitivity, you see that self-identification, even of the most refined sort, is harmful and stressful. You have to let it go”.  Is that the place that I am at?  Do I have to let go of my love for this skill in order to progress in my life?  Do other successful people give up golf or watching football?

Playing with a yo-yo is like a mellifluous dance, like a belly dancer with castanets dancing to the music.  It’s my hobby, it’s my skill and I don’t think it’s going away any time soon.  While I was writing this essay, I dropped another $75 on a yo-yo called “The Milk” and completely by coincidence the crazy California tax was exactly $5.62.

-Josh

Posted on February 17th, 2007 by schalicto
Filed under: Josh Rants