Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Me Rite Gud?


Banana Conversations

            My son may never get to taste a banana. Scientists say in the next ten years or so the banana may join the dinosaurs and become extinct. There is a bacterial disease that started in Panama that is attacking bananas and evolving and adapting at a rapid pace. At this point there is no cure for this banana disease and in as little as a decade bananas may be extinct.
            I say son because I have always pictured having son. Having a daughter scares me. Girls are more vulnerable than boys. I picture lying awake in bed waiting for my seventeen year old daughter to return home from her first date. Her date will have taken her somewhere nice because I will have instilled in her principles of respect. Her curfew wouldn’t be early because I will remember the asshole dads that I had to deal with in high school relationships, but it wouldn’t be late because I would remember the reasons I crept in to my house at two in the morning hoping not to wake my parents. I will toss and turn with worries. Is she happy? Is he respecting her? Is he using her? Is she being “safe”? Would she tell me if she wasn’t?
             My mom got pregnant when she was sixteen and her parents took her out of school. She went to live in a home for seven months of her pregnancy. Her parents made her give the baby up for adoption. I didn’t find out about this until I was thirteen and I have seen the effects it can have on an entire family. My mom said it was the hardest thing she ever had to do, and to this day I sometimes console her as she cries about it forty four years later.
            My wife will be fast asleep. Being a girl herself she would be confident in having raised our daughter “the right way.” But not me. My eyes will remain open and red until I hear our front door lock as my daughter tip toes up the stairs and considerately closes her door as to not wake us up. She will be ten minutes early.
            With a son I feel like I’d have more control. Being raised by my mom, two older sisters, and my sensitive and sweet father I feel like I understand respect, and I would make sure my son would too. I would teach him what it means to be a man and that sensitivity is not a “girly” trait. I would tell him the mistakes I have made, and I would let him make some of his own. I picture having a conversation with my seventeen year old son before going on his first date. Go inside and introduce yourself to her parents. Shake their hands and look them in the eyes. He will be taking her somewhere nice because I will have instilled in him principles of respect. I will give him some money (that he insists on not taking) so that he can continue saving up for whatever new and exciting technological device is out at that time. Be yourself. Make her happy. Don’t lead her on if you’re not into her. Be “safe.” My son will not have a curfew but I will tell him to take his date home ten minutes before hers.
            I will love my son. I will wait up for him until he gets home. When he gets home I will sit with him in the kitchen and talk about his night. We will whisper and muffle our laughs as to not wake my wife. He will try to give me the change from dinner but I’ll tell him to keep it. It will be late but we won’t care. He’s young, and I’ll remember being young. We will talk for hours. About school. About sports. And about bananas.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Ronery

So my amazing girlfriend just left for Korea (the good one) for almost two months, leaving me here to entertain myself which is unfortunate because she is way cooler than I am.

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with the current state of the NBA, but rather captures an accurate state of my emotions.

*pops Linkin Park cd in stereo*

 

Monday, May 21, 2012

Yes.


I Ain't No Poet


First the Leaves Fall

First the leaves fall. Strands of hair carried away by the breeze leaving the body cold and lonely. Shivering limbs tremble in the night air. Too weak and unfit for the owls that flutter by.

Moonlight flickers through the wavering canopy, a candle on the nightstand. Breathing for the leaves never before this painful. Left alone the oak sputters and chokes for water. Underground arteries and unseen veins cease to carry blood to the heart of the trunk.

Bark blisters and flakes off exposing tissue. Fungal bedsores from lack of movement and blood flow, infection sure to ensue. Moss and mites converge at the base and wait—relatives, years removed, greedy for the dispersal of possessions.

The heart goes quiet in the silence of the night. No one gasps. No tears flow. Just the streams continuing with their lives nearby.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Amen

Great Idea...or Greatest Idea?

When I have kids I am absolutely going to exploit them.

There, I said it.

Ever since the idea of having kids has been in my mind I have contemplated different ways to take advantage of their innocence and lack of size. The first idea I had was on my kid's first Halloween I am going to paint it green and give it Yoda ears. Then I'm going to put it in a baby carrier, dress up like Luke SKywalker, and wear the baby carrier backwards. Hold your applause please.

Another idea I am considering is to give my kids off-the-wall middle names. Bawitaba, for example.You know those people who don't like to tell you their middle names because they are embarassed? Those will be my kids. I don't really understand why people even give a shit about a middle name. You only hear them at graduations or when you're in trouble anyways. I guess my point is no one has never not hooked up, not gotten a job, or had less friends because of their middle name.

But those are ideas are merely Bush League...my next idea-my magnum opus if you will-is this...

Ok, a girl baby would work in this, but I'm banking on having a boy. Picture this if you will.

So at about the time my baby is sort of learning to walk-like awkward wobble stage- I would:

1. Shave his head like this





2.Dress him up like this (cane and all)

3. Take him to a park with this



     I would then proceed to give my baby a bag of birdseed, then I would hide in the bushes and wait for the awesomeness to ensue. I would start him on the bench, feeding the birds, but the master plan is that he would get up with his cane-this is where the awkward walking comes into play- and walk around slowly (having just learned to walk) like a little old man.

Am I kidding? Absolutely not. I would patten this idea if I could, but because I'm so gracious I urge you all to try it out when you have kids.




         

What You See When You Die.


                                                                   Opinions will vary.

You're Welcome...


Tuesday, May 15, 2012

I Ain't No Poet


A Photo

            I have a photo of a man whose name I don’t know. The man has no frame. No home.  Just sits on my nightstand leaning up against the lamp my grandfather left me when he passed away. His rusty spade tells me that he was a farmer. His worn boots tell me that he had to work hard. His sunken features tell me he didn’t get enough to eat. As the gutter hanging from the leaning barn behind him collects water he collects dust. He just smiles. I come home from failed-to-get-her-number-nights deflated. Another day of not getting that raise. And yet, the farmer smiles.  I find solace in his smile, and he always smiles. I have a photo of a man whose name I don’t know. He’s smiling. That’s enough.

In Honor of Inception

We're watching it in class, and it is a great movie.


Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Gold Plated Statuses

Below is a list (that will be updated regularly I hope) of statuses from my facebook friends that I feel need to be seen by others...or at least it is sort of a "Best Of" compilation for myself.

Rick Santorum has vowed to "put his full support behind Mitt Romney." He then winked at the camera, formed a circle with his left hand, and stuck a finger from his right and through it, repeatedly.

Who tells someone else's baby to shut up? Old guy on the ferry does.

Love front row parking at Walmart.

Every DVD should have an alternate ending where last shot is a hand errupting from the ground.

Monday, May 7, 2012

I Ain't No Poet


Rust

            I am in a tree house I’m too heavy for.  A sip of whiskey and a hand-rolled smoke as I look out the only window. It’s raining on everything. A trailer that hasn’t been used in years and a rusted shed full of rusted tools. It’s raining on everything and everything is wet. Everything but me. I have the tree house. It’s maybe not the good life, but it’s the good-enough life. The washer and dryer sitting on the covered deck next to the trailer. Everything painted metal, pimpled and blistered with rust.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

College Notes 101

After 5 years in college I have filled many a notebook with "notes". My mind wanders about 4 minutes, on average, into every class and I end up drawing or writing down things that have nothing to do with class. For example, in Biology 101 when I'm sure we were talking about evolution or cell division, I wrote this:

"The guy sitting two rows in front of me has a buzzed head. The back of his head has a lot of wrinkles. It looks like a frowning baby. This baby is pissed.  I assume the baby is pissed because his face is no longer protected by hair, and it's a blustery one today.".

Seventh Sign of the Apocalypse


History does repeat itself. Boy Bands are back. This video is a pretty funny spoof of One Direction's, "What Makes You Beautiful...we all need laughter in a time like this. Enjoy.