My other two hands.
A couple lifetimes ago, I was in graduate school. One of the researchers I used to work with would frequently use the phrase "when I get my other two hands out of my ass." Like, "I'll get to that as soon as I get my other two hands out of my ass" or "That's something I really want to try someday, after I get my other two hands out of my ass." I'm not sure if putting it in text really captures the feeling of the phrase.
It's a beautiful irony. The "out of my ass", besides being comically vulgar, indicates a kind of clumsiness, stupidity, or even negligence. The same way someone with their head up their ass is stupid and unaware of what's going on around them, someone with their hands up their ass is grossly inept, lazy, and unable to accomplish things.
But then the "other" two hands implies preternatural ability. If it were "I'll do that when I grow two new arms", the implication would be that the desired action is asking too much. Not in itself, it might be something very easy out of context, but very hard to accomplish on top of all the other things that he's already committed to.
I always felt like it was a comment on his inability to manage his own expectations of himself. Like he's thinking "I'll get to that as soon as I find some time" but also realizing that he doesn't really have any time to find, or at least very little, and he's deriding himself for thinking he does.
I realized this morning that, to some extent, I've been impatiently wondering when I'm finally going to get my other two hands out of my ass. I'm not.
But I do know that I get more done when I'm busy, so I'm starting to knock items off my various lists and just getting shit done as best I can and not worrying too much about when I get my other two hands out of my ass.
It's a beautiful irony. The "out of my ass", besides being comically vulgar, indicates a kind of clumsiness, stupidity, or even negligence. The same way someone with their head up their ass is stupid and unaware of what's going on around them, someone with their hands up their ass is grossly inept, lazy, and unable to accomplish things.
But then the "other" two hands implies preternatural ability. If it were "I'll do that when I grow two new arms", the implication would be that the desired action is asking too much. Not in itself, it might be something very easy out of context, but very hard to accomplish on top of all the other things that he's already committed to.
I always felt like it was a comment on his inability to manage his own expectations of himself. Like he's thinking "I'll get to that as soon as I find some time" but also realizing that he doesn't really have any time to find, or at least very little, and he's deriding himself for thinking he does.
I realized this morning that, to some extent, I've been impatiently wondering when I'm finally going to get my other two hands out of my ass. I'm not.
But I do know that I get more done when I'm busy, so I'm starting to knock items off my various lists and just getting shit done as best I can and not worrying too much about when I get my other two hands out of my ass.