Humor 7/10/00: Women & Missing Piece

Hi everyone,

This weekend some friends and I went to watch "Chinese Men Don't
Boogie". It's a play about an Asian American family dealing with many
different issues, mostly relating to racism. I enjoy watching Asian
American plays. It's a workshop presentation, so the actors still have
the scripts in their hands. It has dance sequences interspersed
throughout the play. As a result, it's about 2.5 hours long. It
definitely could be edited. The play is showing at the East L.A.
College in Monterey Park and there are only two performances left.

Next weekend I'll be driving up to San Francisco to hang out with
friends. I'm looking forward to the trip and I hope to see many of you
while I'm up there!

This week's thought provoking question is: "If you could have changed
one thing about your parents while you were a child, what would it have
been?"

This week's humor was forwarded by Jennifer Chin, followed by an
inspirational piece forwarded by Anna Man.

Enjoy!

-Josh.
_________________________________________

What DO they want?

A group of girlfriends is on vacation when they see a 5-story hotel with
a sign that reads: "For Women Only". Since they are without their
boyfriends and husbands, they decide to go in. The bouncer, a very
attractive guy, explains to them how it works. "We have 5 floors. Go up
floor by floor, and once you find what you are looking for, you can stay
there. It's easy to decide since each floor has a sign telling you
what's inside."

So they start going up and on the first floor the sign reads: "All the
men on this floor are short and plain." The friends laugh and without
hesitation move on to the next floor. The sign on the second floor
reads: "All the men here are short and handsome." Still, this isn't good
enough, so the friends continue on up. They reach the third floor and
the sign reads: "All the men here are tall and plain." They still want
to do better, and so, knowing there are still two floors left, they
continued on up. On the fourth floor, the sign is perfect: "All the men
here are tall and handsome." The women get all excited and are going in
when they realize that there is still one floor left.

Wondering what they are missing, they head on up to the fifth floor.
There they find a sign that reads: "There are no men here. This floor
was built only to prove that there is no way to please a woman."
__________________________________________

The Missing Piece
Shel Silverstein

It tells the story of a circle that was missing a piece. A large
triangular wedge had been cut out of it.
The circle wanted to be whole with nothing missing, so it went around
looking for it's missing piece.

But because it was incomplete and therefore could only roll very slowly,
it admired the flowers along the way. It chatted with worms. It enjoyed
the sunshine. It found lots of different pieces, but none of them fit.
So it left them all by the side of the road and continued searching.

Then one day the circle found a piece that fit perfectly. It was so
happy. Now it could be whole, with nothing missing. It incorporated the
missing piece into itself and began to roll. Now that it was a perfect
circle, it could roll very fast, too fast to notice the flowers or talk
to the worms. When it realized how different the world seemed when it
rolled so quickly by, it stopped, left its found piece by the side of
the road and rolled slowly away.

Moral of the story
In some strange sense we are more whole when we are missing something.
The man who has everything is in some ways a poor man. He will never
know what it feels like to yearn, to hope, to nourish his soul with the
dream of something better. He will never know the experience of having
someone who loves him give him something he has always wanted and never
had.

There is a wholeness about the person who has to come to terms with his
own limitations, who has been brave enough to let go of his unrealistic
dreams and not feel like a failure for doing so. There is a wholeness
about the man or women who has learned that he or she is strong enough
to go through a tragedy and survive, who can lose someone and still feel
like a complete person. You have been through the worst and come through
intact.

Life is not a trap set for us by God so that he can condemn us for
failing. Life is not a spelling bee, where no matter how many words
you've gotten right, you're disqualified if you make one mistake. Life
is more like a baseball season, where even the best team loses one-third
of the games and even the worst has its days of brilliance.

Our goal is to win more games than we lose.

When we accept that imperfection is part of human being, and that we can
continue rolling through life and appreciating it, we will achieve a
wholeness that others can only aspire to. And at the end, if we are
brave enough to love, strong enough to forgive, generous enough to
rejoice in another's happiness, and wise enough to know there is enough
love to go around for us all, then we can achieve a fulfillment that no
other living creature will ever know