I guess John Courgar is a philosophical genius of our time. Who would have thought it? Tonight's topic, boys and girls, comes to us straight from my underwear. Yes, my underwear.

At about 9:37 PM this evening I felt a slight itching sensation in the area around my right hip bone. Not a mosquito bite type itch, but a little uncomfortable sensation, like unto an itch. I reached down indiscriminately to scratch the itch (have you ever noticed how some people say they itched a scratch?), and what do you know, my underwear was twisted. Not like really twisted, but the elastic band was folded over and irritating my sensitive hip meat. So naturally I came to the defense of my hip meat and ran my finger around the edge of the elastic band. Kind of like you so with the end of a jar of peanut butter and you have none left in the house. Well, it was at that moment when I not only thought, but also felt, the proverbial words of John Cougar, "It hurt so good".

Having "hurt so good" tonight, I began thinking of other times things have hurt so good, and then entire concept of hurting good. Some other examples include falling asleep in your clothes. When you wake up at 2 AM, take off your clothes and get in the sheets, that definitely hurts good. Also, when you have had to pee for a long time and finally get to let it all go, that hurt is almost, . . . well, I'm not going to say it, but I bet everyone has felt that way. Another good hurt is when you stretch and your sore back cracks spontaneously. Or getting a lodged raspberry seed out of your teeth. Please feel free to add your hurts to the list.

Thinking about this, I turned to other hurts. Like the nostalgic sickness I get when listening to U2's "Elvis Presley and America" or George Winston's "Autumn". Also, the melancholy pit in my stomach I get in the Autumn every year. Somehow, I enjoy this. I have heard women talk about having a "good cry". In short, I believe we sometimes enjoy the emotional hurt because it makes us feel alive. Feel real. After working in an office all day under florescent light bulbs I would often drive home in the summer heat without using the car's air conditioning because I needed to feel. Feel human, I guess. Sometimes I think back on past hurts, things that I regret or people I would have liked to treat differently. I think about emotional hurts that I've endured on purpose. And I swim in the memories and feelings. I think this might be sad, but sometimes I go weeks without feeling really anything at all. But I need to feel it, because I am happier when I hurt.