Friday, May 25, 2012

Things that 'Involve Me'

May, 25, 2013

I started at my computer anxiously.  I'd heard there was a change.  Why?  Why do we need a change?  Wait.  Don't get frustrated already, I haven't even seen if what they say is true.  Open a browser, type it in, type in my email address and password.

Wait for it... Oh, come on!  Why did they have to change?  And to this.  What is this?  All new things that 'involve me' at the top?  Why would they do this?  I liked the icon, I liked seeing the little red surrounded number, now this.  Oh, and they changed how it looked.  How will I ever learn to navigate this stupid website.  Next thing you know, we'll be paying to use the thing.  I won't pay it though, there's no way.  This doesn't mean THAT much to me.  I'll just find my games on NinjaKiwi, and keep up with my friends on Google+, I've been thinking about switching over anyway.

I just can't see why they changed it, I LIKED 'timeline.'

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Camping! and stuff.

So, as I said before, I went camping with a few of my buddies from high school.  Before I left I got this great idea to write a short story about a guy who got buried alive (this is important later in this blog).  So, before I left, I wrote a bunch of it.

To say that the trip was eventful would be a gross understatement.  Let's start before I even get to my buddies house (the beginning of the trip).  As I brought my backpack over me, to sit shotgun, I knocked my rear view mirror hard enough to dislodge it.  To be fair, I should have seen this as the omen that it was, but didn't.

We stayed the night at my buddies and played MW3 until it was time to leave.  We loaded up and drove down to Goblin Valley, where we camped.  The first day was incredibly hot.  Unseasonably hot.  I brought jeans.  Luckily, my buddy let me borrow an extra pair of shorts he brought.  We set up a canopy and tried to nap, first in the tent, which was far too hot, then under the canopy, which was less, but still far too hot.  After I read a little and my buddies went exploring, the wind started to blow a little.  So, we took down the canopy and laid in the tent.

We finally fell asleep a little when the wind blew harder.  I asked my buddy, without opening my eyes, if his tent could handle this kind of wind.  His answer was something like, "Oh my gosh!"  Which opened my eyes to a dust devil there in our tent.  All four of us tried to close tent windows as quickly as we could, but the damage had been done.  The tent that we all tried to keep so clean was filled with dirt.

After a while, we cleaned it out and went hiking around the goblins.  The goblins really are an amazing testament to how amazing erosion can be.  I probably would have enjoyed it more if my left I wasn't constantly watering and burning from allergies (which never really stopped the whole trip, no matter how many pills I took).

We went back to camp, made dinner, and slept through the night.  In the morning, we had planned to go canyoneering down a slot canyon my buddy had looked up on line.  We drove there.  On the way, my friend driving got a speeding ticket.  Yep, one cop on one long road, and he got us.  When we finally arrived, we followed the directions to the letter, and ended up not finding the slot canyon opening, but hiked up and down the canyon.  Don't get me wrong, it was fun, and super pretty, but it sure would have been nice to find that slot canyon.

On our way back we stopped for a bite to eat in Hanksville (super good burger joint, if not a bit overpriced).  We enjoyed the AC and slowly made our way back to camp.  Ominously, one of my friends said something about how we should take the tent down so it doesn't bow away.  We all told him he was mad (not in those words though) and left the ten up.  As we drove up to the campsite we saw my friend's overturned tent.  "Oh well,"  we said, "we'll just have to flip it back over."  Oh no, my dear reader, that wasn't the problem.  The wind had torn the fabric, ripped pole pieces completely apart, and bent several others.

This was it.  With the wind still blowing dust, we gathered our things and drove back home to play more MW3 at my friends house.  Oddly enough, through all the crap, it really was a good campout.  I think we all enjoyed ourselves.

Now, I was going to write all this yesterday, but I decided instead to write some more of my buried alive story, which I finished just before this post.  I plan to try and get it published in a magazine.  Wish me luck.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Going Away

Well, today's post will be short.  I didn't post yesterday because Baby J wasn't cooperating with my writing for the day, so I spent what little time I had starting a short story that I hope to get published in a literary magazine about a guy who gets buried alive. 

The reason today's will be short is that I'm preparing for, you guessed it (or maybe you didn't), the annual camping trip with my buddies.  I'll be packing and cleaning the house while my mom watched Baby J for the rest of the day.  I'm not too excited about cleaning and packing, but I'm super stoked to go.  This'll be the third year we do it, and every year has been great.  We've cooked out, talked about things we used to do, talked about things we do now, went skeet shooting one year, hiking, and generally acted like guys generally do in the outdoors.  Like last year, and the year before, I do expect to start missing my wife, and now Baby J.  So that'll be tough, but it's only once a year, and it's always so much fun.

Anyway, I'll be off.  Hope all of you have a great day.  I'll see you when I come back to civilization.

Monday, May 14, 2012

Ring Around the Rosies

We knew it had reached our house when we saw the sores on mother.  It was no secret, not by now, that this was the beginning of the end of her.  We'd seen it before.  Too many times not to know.  She tried to hide them with long sleeves, but we all lived in the same one room apartment.

Ring around the rosies

It's funny how when children ask questions of their parents they feign ignorance.  We asked, as innocently as one might imagine, what the sores were on her arms.  "Nothing." Her answer was an obvious lie, but we couldn't give a follow up before she grabbed us and drug us out to the little garden patch, and quickly cut some flowers.  "Keep these in your pockets.  It's nothing."

Pockets full of posies

We watched, little flowers' heads drooping from our front pockets as Mother's fingers and toes turned black.  Mary, her friend, came over to care for her as we children watched our mother cough and writhe in her bed.  It seemed like just another spring day when Mother coughed for the last time.  The Priest came and told us she was with God.  Her body went to be burned though, just like our house and the rest of our neighborhood.  We watched it from a hill just a little ways off, our house I mean, burning to the ground.  They said it was to get rid of the disease.

Ashes, ashes

It didn't get rid of it though.  My brother and two of my sisters got the sores and began coughing horribly, just as mother had.  Eventually, each one of them died.  Most of the people I knew died.  Each one thrown into the fires and burned.  And one day, I looked at my leg, and found a sore.  That's the day I threw the flower Mother had given me away.  Nothing could protect us from this.

We all fall down

Thursday, May 10, 2012

It's Not My Wife's Fault After All

My wife is a known bed hoarder.  She starts out by saying that she wants to 'cuddle,' and by the end of the night, I'm laying on one foot real estate, trying not to fall onto the floor.

At first, I thought this might be a choice that she was making.  I thought that she might just want to take as much of the bed for her tiny frame as possible, and that she wanted to leave me out in the cold.  I thought that, until the events of last night made me rethink my position, and come to the conclusion that bed hoarding is actually something that my wife might not be able to control.

We spent yesterday afternoon helping my sister and her husband put a grow box in their garden.  Good times all around.  We brought Baby J's sleeping stuff, because we knew that she'd need a nap.  Accidentally (because we're not masochists),  we left her sleeping paraphernalia at my sister's, and were forced to get her to sleep without it.

To say the least, I am one tired guy.  I'll actually be a little surprised if this post makes any sense.

Anyway, the way that we finally got her to sleep was by letting her cry in her room for a while, and then transferring her to our bed to sleep betwixt her mom and me.  She fell asleep there, and, because I'm paranoid of this, I tried very hard not to roll even within the vicinity of her.  By about four this morning, I woke up to realize that Baby J had moved toward me the entire night, and that I, subconsciously, kept moving away so as not to roll onto her.  I, the 230 pound guy in our house, was restricted to one foot of real estate, while my 100 pound wife and 19 pound daughter shared the remainder.

My conclusion: Bed Hoarding is genetic.  It's not my wife's fault, she can't help it, and Baby J picked it up from her.  I weep for Baby J's future husband.  

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Sally, Part 41

Sally, Part 40

Stacey quickly hung his sack on a tree branch and gathered as many cherries as he could in his shirt.  They were sweeter than he'd anticipated.  Immediately, he started thinking of what he'd do with something so delicious.  Maybe in different circumstances, maybe if he had the opportunity to cook with fresh produce, with fresh picked cherries like this, he'd be more fond of the land, but next to a suddenly kind Syrin, and below an untrusted Mattias, Stacey could only enjoy his sweet, red dinner without the daydream of cooking with them.

Mattias dropped down, sack in one hand, and the bottom of his cherry filled shirt in the other.  "I fear we'll not eat like this again in some time.  Glad this tree hadn't been picked by the shepherds yet."  His lips were already dyed from eating some while in the tree.

Both of the other men grunted in agreement, but didn't stop popping more into their mouths and spitting out the pits.  The three sat there, at the base of that tree, eating greedily for over an hour.  No words were spoken after Mattias's observation.  All three thought of the road ahead.  Of course, Stacey knew little but that he was on a dangerous journey, but the other two walked it in their minds.  The mountains just ahead, the swamp that lie on the other side, the forest beyond that, and the slavers' camp that would be in the fields beyond the forest.  Stacey was right, it would be dangerous.  There would be little chance to sit beneath a tree, or truly enjoy a meal, or even walk without watching to see if they were being followed.  None of them could think of anything else, and none wanted to talk about it, in case one of their colleagues had figured out how to, so they sat in silence, enjoying, as best they could, a last quiet moment beneath the blue sky, and yellow sun, amid grass and the distant baa of sheep being herded by loving shepherds.  It was too fragile a scene for words, so they just sat, and soaked in what they could.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Short of Phoenix

The motorcycle sputtered and burped for the last three miles as the pin on the gauge pushed up against empty until it bowed and almost broke.  He'd hoped to make it as far as Phoenix, but was nowhere near.  It's not like he had anything waiting for him in Phoenix, but sometimes all a man has is a hope to keep him going.  Unfortunately, hope doesn't make up for gasoline.

He could see a hill in front of him, so he popped the motorcycle into neutral and walked it over to where the road dropped in altitude.  He looked out and saw a slaughterhouse and a tight grouping of houses.  He thought he saw a gas station, but didn't dare to hope that much.  A little hope will keep a man going, too much hope and he'll burst and die.  Besides, he had no money, and few business men make it to a million by giving things away for free.

With a grunt, he pushed the motorcycle once more and down the hill he went.  Maybe there wasn't a gas station, maybe he didn't have money, but at least he could ask the slaughterhouse for a job.  He could hope for that.  That wouldn't break him.

Friday, May 4, 2012

That Prius Must Pay

It was a Tuesday afternoon.  I was alone.  Lost in a sea of hoods and tailpipes on Main Street.  Each driver seemed determined to get in front of another, but was disappointed in the gridlock.  How long had I been driving?  How long would I be on Main?  I tried to look ahead of the wide hipped duely in front of me to figure out how many blocks I had left, but to no avail.  I tried to look for landmarks to help me figure it out, but either I hadn't noticed these shops, or couldn't remember where they were compared to the street I was supposed to turn on.

Why were things so backed up?  What had happened ahead?  Was I driving into a trap?  Would my family ever see me again?  I tried again to look ahead of the duely and was sharply cut off by a Prius.  Damn.  The blue stood against the white of the duely and I only felt more lost with rage.  In this horrible gridlock, how could they be so rude as to cut someone off?  It made my blood boil, and eye twitch.  Surely, the driver of that Prius must pay.

I slowly cam to a stop with my pack of cars and the one awful Prius as we approached a stop light.  Its red lights looked like deamons' eyes, peering down and looking for the next soul to corrupt.  Exhaust from a big red truck a lane over and a few cars up filled the air, and we all felt forced to roll up our windows before being engulfed in its toxic gas.  Surely nothing good could come of this.  My heart was pounding, beads of sweat formed on my brow and I could feel my hands and legs tremble under the pressure of the situation.  I could literally feel my mind lose control of my body when suddenly, the light turned green, all of us went, and I carried on with the rest of my day.

Things can get so intense sometimes. :)

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Sally, Part 40

Sally, Part 39

Once again, Stacey found himself wanting to believe and believe in Mattias.  He sounded so genuine and kind.  It took effort for Stacey to shrug off this encouraging statement and remember that Mattias was lying, and that he'd probably never see the ocean again.  This only made him feel worse though.  He never said goodbye, and here on land was the last place he wanted to be buried.  All the while though, his hands kept up their pace.  After working for demanding captains, Stacey had learned to separate his hands from his thoughts and picking fruit was a easy enough that the skill transferred. 

Mattias was soon up in the tree as well.  After masts and ropes, Syrin and Mattias easily found places to grip and scaled the tree without trouble.  Stacey considered climbing up as well, but worried that he'd over-estimate the strength of a branch and come tumbling down.

Syrin dropped out of the tree just as Stacey finished filling his sack.  "Find enough?"  Syrin's eyes were sincere.

"Yeah.  Just finished."

"Good."  Syrin hung his sack from a branch, held the bottom of his shirt up to make a makeshift basket, collected several cherries, and sat at the trunk of the tree.  Stacey just stood and watched him do this.  Syrin's sudden kindness had made him a little nervous.  In the past he'd been little else but cold, and Stacey wasn't sure what he was supposed to do in this situation.  "Well?"

Stacey wasn't sure what Syrin was asking, and must have shown it, because Syrin continued.  "I'm afraid this is dinner for the day.  I wasn't sure if there'd be enough cherries for it, but there are.  So, I recommend handing your sack somewhere and eating as much as you can.  We have a long night ahead of us."

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Top Dog

Top Dog had been in charge of the pack of wild dogs for many years.  Over that time he was able to talk them away from hunting for what would feed the pack, and to obsess over The Allusive White Rabbit.  In his tenure he ate most of the food that had been hunted before he came to power, and was seldom called out on it because most of the pack did little but chase The White Rabbit, and occasionally hunt for something else when they were starving.

Eventually, Top Dog died, and a new Top Dog was to be chosen.  The new Top Dog chosen was a dog of high moral ideals, who had been one of the few to ignore The White Rabbit and stand up to Top Dog.  He had many ideas about what the pack should be doing, and how to quickly get them out of the food shortage that they were in.

When he first became Top Dog he tried to implement his plans, but found much resistance from many of the other dogs who were still obsessed with The White Rabbit.  The new Top Dog, instead of listening to their concerns, called them all idiots and accused them of being blind to his predecessor's tricks and lies, leaving them offended, and when he tried to explain his ideas they would close their ears and talk of how he had been rude to them about their wanting to catch The White Rabbit.

Soon, the pack did not listen to Top Dog, but continued to chase The White Rabbit, all the while Top Dog would bark and whine as loudly as he could, but to no avail. 

You may be Top Dog, but if you cannot disagree with someone without offending them, you might as well be the same leader that was there before.