Slow Smiles

I guess you could call me a mood enhancement researcher and developer, in the only the best senses of course; no seventh senses allowed. This morning I found a new one: Slow Smiling. You start with a angry or sad face, and then see how slowly one can come to full smile, or to maniacal laughter if it feels right. I admit that the idea may have been sparked by the Chappelle Show skit where everything is cooler in slow motion. The best part for me is when the faintest glimmer of a smile flashes over the frown face. Muscle control is key. The slower you do it the more the countless nuances of the smiling process reveal themselves. Most things can be improved by slowing them down. When my brothers and I were at the Supperclub we tried to walk together in slow motion all the way from the bar to the dance floor, but it proved quite difficult. We all started laughing after a minute or so, but it was cool as hell for the first thirty or forty seconds.

Later, driving across the Bay Bridge, I practiced another good one - projecting part of your spirit into nearby people and animals to experience their feelings and thoughts. Today I tried a Western Gull. feathers feel much different than hands, and each aspect of wind transmits through particular groups of feathers. Flying over water fully engages and exhilarates - just the kind of mood I prefer. Then I tried what I thought for sure was a full-sized poodle in the backseat of an economy car. The dog was thinking that the view from the bridge was all fine and good, but how it would much rather run outdoors, lope over hills & through dales, maybe cross a creek or two. When I pulled closer I found that the dog was actually a blue-haired human, and so momentarily doubted my spirit projection skills. When I passed them though, I could see the amazingly wrinkled, I'm talking maximum imaginable wrinklage, hunch-backed and beautiful lady leaning forward, speaking alertly, and gesturing towards the Marin Headlands. She wished to lope over hill & dale, maybe cross a creek or three, a kindred soul for shore. Spent half my 12th year year reading "non-fiction" and fiction were-beast books, getting familiar with all this stuff, berserkr.