Catshavealoveformethatisnotreciprocated

Cats LOVE me. Sometimes I feel like this:

They SENSE that I just want nothing to do with them.
So they are all like, "Hey guy, like me."
And I'm like, "No."
And they are all like, "Here's my butt."

Then it's all over because I push them away and they think I'm being loving so they try to weasel their little necks under my palm as I am literally shoving them off the couch for humans with real feelings, when really, I just hate them. This an official notice to all cats everywhere: GO AWAY DEMON-SPAWN, I DON'T WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND. Go kill something that is not a human baby.

[Keep following. Do it.]

Also Old (But Applicable). I'm Too Exhausted To Be Creative.

I've always thought the verb “to pine” was an interesting phrase. The dictionary defines it as, “to yearn deeply; suffer with longing; long painfully.” Not often does one find a word that can be an inanimate object when used as a noun and mean something completely opposite when used as a verb. What does pain have to do with a coniferous tree?

Well, let’s look at the definitions more carefully: “To long painfully.” I guess trees are pretty long. That doesn’t connect unless the length described here does not refer to distance at all, but to time. Pine trees are evergreens. Forever green. Fitting, because when one pines for something or someone, it isn’t usually a short-term thing. Maybe the word suggests a pain and suffering that is continuous, just like the needles that tenaciously hold their color. Stagnant. Ever-green. Like a wellspring of hurt.

The word can also mean “to fail gradually in health or vitality from grief, regret, or longing.” This also seems to be a contradiction. Other trees look sickly and dead in the winter, whereas evergreens do not. Sometimes they seem like the only thing alive in winter. It turns out that that is also false. Evergreens are just as sickly in the winter as other trees, they just don’t show it. Photosynthesis stops almost completely but not altogether. They respirate and have just the right porous surface on their needles so as not to lose too much water. They survive, but barely. So I guess it’s just a façade. A dodge or hustle to throw off those who would put pines in the same class as ruddy aspen or cowardly oak.

Archaic: “to suffer grief or regret over.” What does a tree have in common with this definition? Does a tree regret? Is the mighty pine an optimist? Or a procrastinator? Maybe lingering green is not just resiliency but simple foolhardiness. Could these trees not just send their water and nutrient stores down into dark roots like other trees? Why so stubborn? Why waste the energy to keep creating food when the sky has clouded over? Maybe the needles that rescue its color in the winter suffocate the tree in the summer. Maybe it regrets this; not growing more in the summer and so forces itself to survive in winter. The green is more a funeral shroud of grief and regret than an indicator of life. A sign of a fool’s hope.

Before 900 AD in Middle English the word meant, “pinen: to torture, torment, inflict pain, be in pain.” This green is self-deprecating, a funeral dirge for hopeless optimism. An insidious form of self-torture. Certainly pines cannot be used for torture! you say? Unless the wood is fashioned into a cross, bored into to form a stocks, or cut down to erect a gallows. The needles even inflict pain. Some say to protect themselves. I say it’s to torture those who don’t understand the pine’s message.

Pining may be fitting indeed.

[Keep following cuz it's gettin' started in ha. In here!]

Our Sprinklers Were Installed By Sadists

Seriously. Take a gander.

The Branbury Apartments, aside from being an apparent magnet for rapists, has also hired evil, wet-sock-loving sprinkler installers. What did they pay these people to do exactly?  Last time I checked, concrete sidewalks did not need watering. But hey, perhaps times have changed.

To their credit, they were creative in their devilry. The sprinklers only come on at night. That is the worst kind of diablerie because it is freezing cold at night. At least little children would glory in running through the streams of water during the hot day. These people must have been hell-bent on spreading their malign influence on all who choose to keep hours that are different from a third grader.

There is no sound that strikes more terror into my heart than hearing the sporadic popping and hissing of a lumbering and spiteful midnight sprinkler program coming to life. It engenders a panicked cry of, "RUUUUN!!!" like some third rate action-adventure movie. The sprinkler heads rise slowly from the grass, hissing all the while like plastic snakes before spraying their cold venom on any innocent bystanders. If you are unfortunate enough to arrive after they are in full cycle, an impenetrable obstacle course awaits. Shooting scatter-patterns of death, each sprinkler head seems like it is manned by the last Nazi gunner at Normandy. Last night they had me bobbing and weaving like some frantic, novice boxer.

But I braved the crossfire. A mad courage and longing for home possessed me. I performed spin moves that would make Adrian Peterson blush. I deftly avoided each homicidal stream only to get caught by an unforeseen pernicious trap.

It has been called many things.

I call it the puddle of sullied hopes.

You see, not only are the sprinkler men evil, they are sly and smart. They outwitted me. I am defeated. They must have broken the regulators and extended the cycles in such a way that it causes excess water flow. The water slowly builds to create a mini Lake Michigan every night in the middle of our lawn. The grass can't take it. And there the water rests. Luring the lone traveler before splashing in and seeping to the toes. In an instant your feet are sopping. In an instant you flash back to the last time your mother held you, and you wish that you had held on a second longer.

Beware the Branbury sprinklers. But if pass through you must, abandon all hope. And bring extra socks.

[Keep following, Ris does.]

An Oldie But A Goodie

Perhaps I remember too well how
August ended in snow or
How Lighthouses deceived me or
When I felt empty in Scotland

I am loathe to dock on convenient
Shores;
Finding the first inviting harbor
Yet I know no other way
Fear of whipping winds or
Sails long fallen limp --
Keeps me at bay

For fear of feeling penetrating cold,
Watching flurries of flakes,
I burned my rigging and set fire to the deck
Yet again; Despite pretending
Winter was rain-soaked snow drifts

I long for forbidden routes and
Exotic ports;
Deep bays and long docks on sunny shores
Blue waters on warm skin
Where I can finally rest
And depart again
But not alone.

[Keep following because I have to admit, it's getting better. All the time.]

Masquerading on. And on.

What a difference a day makes. I think Annie was right. No matter what happens in our today, tomorrow still has an imagination. And it's better than yours. Way better.

Life tends to be a smug masquerade. We are all dancers on it's floor. We wear our ornate costumes, drape ourselves in exotic fabrics, and elegantly spin as if nothing were amiss. We have our masks; our self-deceptions, pride, and narrow pessimism. As if no new dawn could lavish hope.

Little do we know that around each spinning step slinks an opportunist fate. A met glance. Another chance. Or the audacity of romance. We simple fools. We dance on. Side-stepping our mistress luck for the gatekeeper solitude. We cloud our eyes with ethereal fantasy and drift past waiting out our lives as if it were some one-time-only movie showing.

The sun will come out tomorrow. Though you can't fathom its glory. The while we study the barbican moon. The haunches of its dimness. Shortchange those we love and whittle away the minutes. There is contentment but not joy. We experience a sort of damning lack of progress with contentment. We would have joy but for sadness. Fear whips us into hovels.

I for one am in a beaming moment. Warm-faced and blissful. Spirits akin to longing, now embrace like long-parted friends. Keep me loving and I get away from the dance and tear off my mask; and live.

[Keep following children. Happy days are upon us if you look hard enough. Who knows? Maybe you will wake up 50 years from now to a sterile gray dawn and short days filled with ashen snow.]