Wednesday, May 3, 2017

OH, MURSI, MURSI ME


This post is part of the monthly blog hop/therapy session known as the Insecure Writers Support Group, founded by the one and only, Alex J. Cavanaugh. If you're a writer, insecure, or just supportive of writers—insecure or not—please join us. It happens the first Wednesday of each month.  I encourage everyone to visit at least a dozen new blogs and leave a comment. Your words will be appreciated.

May's IWSG Question: 
What is the weirdest/coolest thing you ever had to research for your story?


Funny that today's question has to do with weird research...
Just yesterday... 
I was looking at images on Google of women in their 30’s...
To use in Scrivener for one of my character profiles.
I'm scrolling, scrolling scrolling...
When all of a sudden...
This image of an African Mursi woman shows up.  
Obviously, not at all what I was looking for.
Curious, I hit the image to enlarge it...








   
  
                            


And then...
Another Mursi woman with lip plates shows up...
And this one sporting a thingamajig on her head.
OY!






 I continued scrolling when... 
WHOA!!!
This image of tribal men from New Guinea...
With gourds covering their thingies pops up. 
I was curious about the concept...
But more so confused...
I just couldn’t wrap my head around it...
Not that I wanted to wrap my head around any of those thingies. 
But don't ya just wonder... 
How do they go to the bathroom?
How does the gourd stay on?
Do any guys have gourd envy?
What happens if they get excited?
Do the gourds ever get stuck or caught on something? Owie!

 
And do women brag?  
"My guy’s gourd is longer than your guy’s     
gourd haha haha."










And look...
There’re even stores that sell these gourds.
Hmm?
Can the guys try them on for size?
Or...
Are they one size fits all?
And here's a thought...
It'd make an interesting gift for the guy who has everything...
Bet he doesn't have one of these. 




So there I was, contemplating these poking questions when...
“Em!”
“Huh! Who’s that?”
“Your muse!
How much time are you going to waste...
Looking at Mursi women with thingamajigs, and penis gourds?
"Well...um...er...uh...
“Get back to work!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
And I did...
Well, needless to say... 
I didn't use any of these images for my Scrivener profiles...
And I gotta tell ya...
I’ll never look at a gourd the same way again.
So? 
Ever see or hear about these guy-gourds?


Always,

Em-Musing

10 comments:

Liza said...

That is some....um...research? Too funny.It may not help for the current project but everything is fodder for the future, right? Right??

Nancy Gideon said...

Gourd envy. I almost spit my coffee. Like they don't have enough to worry or brag about! Yes, research can draw us to the strangest places . . . but you never know when that gourd-thing might come up again!

L. Diane Wolfe said...

LOL! Gourd envy. Just how do they stay on anyway? Or did you get that far?

Arlee Bird said...

This is just too darn funny. But then I'd probably think some of the same questions. How in the world have some of these strange customs come into being anyway? That we may likely never know if the customs are really old.

Arlee Bird
Tossing It Out

Crystal Collier said...

Oh my. I will never complain about skinny jeans again.

Rachna Chhabria said...

Oh My God...your research did throw up a lot of weird stuff ;)

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I'm going to chalk that up to things I really didn't need to know...

Pat Garcia said...

I can see you enjoy doing research. I too find myself coming up with strange topics that draw me away from what I am acutally looking for.

Shalom aleichem,
Pat G

Hart Johnson said...

You win. I even shared you with my author page on Facebook because you had me giggling and snorting. Well done.

Deniz Bevan said...

Ha ha! Sometimes research definitely feels that way. I wish we could open a chat window and ask some of our research subjects these kinds of questions.
I wonder the same thing when I see people with an earring and a lipring connected by a chain -- what if it gets caught on something???