bright eyes and shining cheeks
following faithfully the glow of us, her sun
(for now)
...all this is fleeting, of course
someday you will gangle and grow beyond this innocent simplicity
beyond us
beyond me
(but i will love you)
...before then, please explain why you want to wear shorts on 20 degree days
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
The Morning Train
Dear Slimy Man-Weevil,
Listen, somewhere around the birth of my second child I lost all sustainable patience for social blathering, and as much as a part of me is cringing right now and saying, "hey, he's a lonely miserable person, squashing him like a bug might help the gene pool but it won't help him, you should be nice," there is another part of me that insists that all efforts at niceness have failed and is sincerely interested in triggering open the train doors and pushing you through them on a daily basis because I HAVE HAD ENOUGH.
Now that I have three children, I can assure you, my patience is worn very thin. Plus, I have to babysit my boss all day, isn't that exciting. FYI, at about this point in time the only thing I want to spend any time learning is the proper way to knuckle a speedbag, because at least then I can imagine it is the same misshapen balloon as your head.
First of all, if you're talking to a woman and all she talks about to you is her husband and children, she's really not looking at you in the "run away with this guy" category. She's looking at you as a head with ears. While that head with ears is a very important feature to women everywhere, there are thousands, nay, millions of them the world over, and we're pretty good at finding them when we want to. It is not an invitation to end your loneliness by proceeding to spend every morning for the rest of eternity trying to figure out which train she will be on and then catching it. By the way, point of reference, has it ever occurred to you that the reason she's never on the same train 2 days in a row is because she doesn't want to deal with this?? Feel free to be paranoid.
Please keep in mind that she doesn't dislike you any more than she dislikes anyone else, she is in fact in an easily victimized position because the objective after all is to teach the children how to tolerate and be nice to other people even when they're horribly annoying and have stinky breath. However, if you insist on sitting on the train every morning and staring at her from beneath your fake-sleeping eyelids, she may change her mind and teach them all to wield 2-handed swords by the age of 12. It will be your fault.
Secondly, if you're talking to a woman and all she talks about to you is her husband and children, she's really not subliminally suggesting that she in fact wants you to call her sexy and beautiful and make all kinds of hinting and direct remarks about how nice it would be, gee is she sure she doesn't want to run away with you. They were sort of (underline that, sort of, as in not quite, not really, not almost, slightly offset, akilter, 2 steps to the left of) just shy of tolerably amusing ONE and ONLY ONE TIME. The other FIFTEEN HUNDRED TIMES were uninvited OVERKILL. At this point, you may correctly assume that she is talking incessantly about husband and children because YOU SHOULD TAKE THE HINT AND CHANGE THE FRICKIN' SUBJECT.
Thirdly, if you're talking to a woman and all she talks about to you is her husband and children, she's really not asking for hints about your sexual interests and inclinations. While she might appreciate the reserve with which you are kindly NOT going into detail, the fact that you insist on hinting at it despite every responding request or attempt to change the subject should in fact be a GLARING HINT at why you're so miserably LONELY IN THE FIRST PLACE. She SINCERELY does NOT WANT TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR INTEREST IN BONDAGE, SEX TOYS, or INTERNET and VIDEO GAME PORN.
Please, learn this:
The lines and thought processes that don't work on the fashion models REALLY DON'T WORK ON US AVERAGE FOLKS, EITHER. And being average, we are not racks to capture your drool. We are not dopey, dippy, stupid, bovinesque creatures just longing to be dragged from the drudgery of our milk-filled lives. We are not hormonally raging internet porn princesses waiting for you to stop by and demonstrate the electronic orgasm. We are not interested in repeating on multiple occasions that we are not in fact interested in any subject other than home, work, husband, kids, weather, cars, and current government issues. We do not feel obligated to discuss any other subjects with you. While we may feel an outdated and old-fashioned social obligation to be polite and pleasant, must it really be necessary to arm ourselves with large heavy objects, cans of pepper spray, and a small contingent of bodyguards to get the actual point across?? Can you not understand that with each day that passes in this manner, we cease to consider you human and we do not believe for one moment that you are anything less than the next serial killer waiting to happen??
Please, please, please, TAKE THE HINT and NOTE THE FOLLOWING:
Politeness and patience are not signs of weakness. They are what make civilization possible. If we do not respond to your verbal hints, moody staring, and insistent repetition, no matter how many times or ways you repeat it, WE ARE REALLY AND TRULY NOT INTERESTED IN YOU.
And by all means, please do remember this:
We keep telling you about our husbands and children BECAUSE WE LIKE THEM.
Hope to hell you're listening,
Sincerely,
Not Interested
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Truth Be Spoken Here
On the surface of some world, somewhere, there is a ship foundering on the open sea. Upon it are the usual crew of lost souls, each adrift between stars and sky and sun and storm and salt and sea and wind.
I have kept my footing on her decks for nigh on two years now, despite all efforts to the contrary. It does not feel like much of an accomplishment. The ship is called The Doubt for good reason.
A Typical Day:
Dawn fluffs her pink and golden hair at the night and blows the darkness away with long fingers of sunlight... of course, this means nothing to myself or the crew, for we have been up for hours, slaving away at whatever the most important tasks are... we enjoy the work, and the silence and the sound of ocean and wind. We enjoy the darkness slowly turning to light, and the ornately random blanket of stars that sleeps us through the night.
Mostly we like the lack of leadership. We seem to get more done, and well, without their assistance. Madwink McCutcheon, once master of a fleet of hundreds, rips his hair out daily trying to recover the lost position of our lonely Doubt. The crewmen, all of whom speak languages similar to eachother but bearing no resemblance to english, work hard at rowing and patching and pulling nets and rigging, patching sails and tossing buckets. They sing or hum while they work, and occasionally resort to dancing with mops, laughing joyfully.
My first task of the day is a great steaming cauldron of coffee. Me and Raggah are the only ones who really drink it, though Madwink has been known to take a cup every other week or so. Madwink seems to survive on breadcrumbs and air. Raggah and I require sturdier stuff. One cup each, every morning. Occasionally we even find one of our hidden boxes of biscuits and dig in...
After that I get to compile lists, and check and crosscheck and notate and tabulate and reference and cross-reference and recheck and denote and infer and deduct and conclude every stray little piece of information that can possibly be gleaned from our transitory inventory. Even on a ship, the inventory is transitory. Mysteriously so. The numbered crates and boxes and all of their multitudinous contents shift and change and meander and slide and upend and reverse themselves chaotically after I have retired for the night. I have come to accept this as normal. If we ever see civilized land again, well, things might change, but for now, this is what we have to work with.
Madwink is at the helm, cursing and spitting like a cat with a brick tied to it's tail.
"South!!!" he shouts at me. "I specifically told him NORTH and tied it off and he took it and switched it and holy hell we spent God knows how many hours going SOUTH against WIND AND TIDE!!! WHAT THE HELL IS HE THINKING???"
He's thinking he owns the ship and he can do whatever he pleases with it, I specifically do NOT say out loud. There are a lot of things I specifically do NOT say out loud on this ship.
"Up to the crow's nest, Monkey, off you go. Take a bead on the horizon and bring me back th' weather."
I hate the crow's nest. It is not what I was hired for. But then they got me out here on the open ocean, and it was all downhill from there... So, for lack of an excuse, I scale the teetering, swaying heights and peer over the rim of what might as well be a balsa-wood fruit basket at the top of the ship. At least it has walls, I think to myself as I level the spyglass at the horizon and begin to scan through it. I am currently high enough in the air that I will be able to trip any birds that might happen by. Perhaps an albatross. Better yet, a pelican. I can force it to drop its fish.
"Storm before us!" I call down to Madwink. The volume of the cursing an unintelligible muttering grows very loud. I quickly continue to scan the horizon for 360 degrees... just in case something better-- something solid-- something green--
"LAND! MADWINK! LAND-HO!!"
Dear God, Thank You for this opportunity to leave this cursed and You-forsaken beast of a ship. I and the entire crew swear our fealty to You and please, please, please, let us just make sure before--
"HAR! What's this I hear about LAND? There's no land in these parts, Monkey, you've lost your marbles and expect us to follow you! Now, come down from that roost and get back to your business--"
Ah, frick. Too late.
(to be continued...)
I have kept my footing on her decks for nigh on two years now, despite all efforts to the contrary. It does not feel like much of an accomplishment. The ship is called The Doubt for good reason.
A Typical Day:
Dawn fluffs her pink and golden hair at the night and blows the darkness away with long fingers of sunlight... of course, this means nothing to myself or the crew, for we have been up for hours, slaving away at whatever the most important tasks are... we enjoy the work, and the silence and the sound of ocean and wind. We enjoy the darkness slowly turning to light, and the ornately random blanket of stars that sleeps us through the night.
Mostly we like the lack of leadership. We seem to get more done, and well, without their assistance. Madwink McCutcheon, once master of a fleet of hundreds, rips his hair out daily trying to recover the lost position of our lonely Doubt. The crewmen, all of whom speak languages similar to eachother but bearing no resemblance to english, work hard at rowing and patching and pulling nets and rigging, patching sails and tossing buckets. They sing or hum while they work, and occasionally resort to dancing with mops, laughing joyfully.
My first task of the day is a great steaming cauldron of coffee. Me and Raggah are the only ones who really drink it, though Madwink has been known to take a cup every other week or so. Madwink seems to survive on breadcrumbs and air. Raggah and I require sturdier stuff. One cup each, every morning. Occasionally we even find one of our hidden boxes of biscuits and dig in...
After that I get to compile lists, and check and crosscheck and notate and tabulate and reference and cross-reference and recheck and denote and infer and deduct and conclude every stray little piece of information that can possibly be gleaned from our transitory inventory. Even on a ship, the inventory is transitory. Mysteriously so. The numbered crates and boxes and all of their multitudinous contents shift and change and meander and slide and upend and reverse themselves chaotically after I have retired for the night. I have come to accept this as normal. If we ever see civilized land again, well, things might change, but for now, this is what we have to work with.
Madwink is at the helm, cursing and spitting like a cat with a brick tied to it's tail.
"South!!!" he shouts at me. "I specifically told him NORTH and tied it off and he took it and switched it and holy hell we spent God knows how many hours going SOUTH against WIND AND TIDE!!! WHAT THE HELL IS HE THINKING???"
He's thinking he owns the ship and he can do whatever he pleases with it, I specifically do NOT say out loud. There are a lot of things I specifically do NOT say out loud on this ship.
"Up to the crow's nest, Monkey, off you go. Take a bead on the horizon and bring me back th' weather."
I hate the crow's nest. It is not what I was hired for. But then they got me out here on the open ocean, and it was all downhill from there... So, for lack of an excuse, I scale the teetering, swaying heights and peer over the rim of what might as well be a balsa-wood fruit basket at the top of the ship. At least it has walls, I think to myself as I level the spyglass at the horizon and begin to scan through it. I am currently high enough in the air that I will be able to trip any birds that might happen by. Perhaps an albatross. Better yet, a pelican. I can force it to drop its fish.
"Storm before us!" I call down to Madwink. The volume of the cursing an unintelligible muttering grows very loud. I quickly continue to scan the horizon for 360 degrees... just in case something better-- something solid-- something green--
"LAND! MADWINK! LAND-HO!!"
Dear God, Thank You for this opportunity to leave this cursed and You-forsaken beast of a ship. I and the entire crew swear our fealty to You and please, please, please, let us just make sure before--
"HAR! What's this I hear about LAND? There's no land in these parts, Monkey, you've lost your marbles and expect us to follow you! Now, come down from that roost and get back to your business--"
Ah, frick. Too late.
(to be continued...)
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