We Are So Small

There are very few things in life that can deflate our egos. This is one of them. There is something about this video that rattles me. One cannot help but cry out for God when watching this devastation.

Humans have an amazing capacity to create. This gives us an amazing sense of accomplishment, as it should. We can build rockets that take men to the moon. We can travel thousands of miles in a flying tube. We can talk to humans on the opposite side of the globe through a handheld device. We are more connected than ever before. We are healthier and wealthier. We eat foods that grow hundreds of miles away. We have a universe of information at our fingertips. We have cured diseases and we are living longer than ever before. Indeed we are creative and resilient.

But all it takes is an earthquake to remind us that for all our creations, we are not powerful. All it takes is for our creations to literally crumble on their foundations around us to remind us that we are still flesh and blood. Still frail and weak. Still tiny.

We can inspire one another. We can overcome the greatest obstacles in our paths to forge peace treaties, to feed starving mouths, to communicate. The human spirit is indomitable. We go on living in spite of fear and terror. We are brave enough to stand for what we believe in. And yet, we still bicker about politics. We bully and cheat. We lust and want. We are prideful, we think that we deserve. 

But all it takes is a tsunami to remind us that for everything we are, we are not in control. All it takes is to see the ocean water wash away cars and buildings as if they were grains of sand to remind us that we should change. To remind us that that which we considered important, may not be.

We are so small. God help us.

[Keep following.]

The Ancient Art Of Yo-Yo

*Due to the insensitive nature of my previous post, I have decided to replace my 50th post with something more... appropriate. Contact me if you would like to read the last one again, or if you would like to consider it for the Pulitzer.*

I can remember it like it was yesterday. It was the 90s. I had a bowl cut and wore corduroys. I was in the sixth grade. And I have to say, Administrators at Sacajawea Middle School must have been smoking some "confiscated paraphernalia" they found in the parking lot that day. And by "confiscated" I mean stolen. And by "paraphernalia" I mean Sloppy Joe mix. They must have been "high on life" or something. And by "high" I mean high. And by "life" I mean drugs. This had to be the case, because for some unfathomable reason they invited a PROFESSIONAL YO-YOer  to perform for a school full of children with the attention spans of handicapped gnats.

                                                             This was my first one.

We sat wide-eyed, enamored with the polished and flashy presentation. The Yo-Yo guy was a first class salesman. He made it look easy. "Here's how you walk the dog!" he would say as his little Duncan Flyer bounced happily in front of him. "It really looks like a dog!" we would say, ribbing our neighbors. While screams and sighs of childish ecstasy rose from the assembly, teachers took it upon themselves to shush us. Really now?! You can't invite the Pope to visit, and expect the congregation not to heave babies at him. But this man wasn't the Pope. He was God. For after the bush-league tricks, he unleashed the big guns. "Re-entry!!!! Around the World!!!" At this point the teachers could stop shushing. We were dumbfounded.

He would throw his Yo-Yo in front of him, almost haphazardly, and it would shoot back into his hand, the perfect Re-entry. He would follow up with swinging the little disc in a huge vertical arc all the way around him, only to shoot back into his hand, the perfect Around the World. We were leaning so far forward on our seats, he had us drooling in the girls' perms in front of us. We were more excited and concentrated than ever before when he nonchalantly left his Yo-Yo at the bottom of the string. Spinning. It was The Sleeper. He could have asked us to sign contracts in our own blood at this point to get our hands on some Yo-Yos, but he wasn't finished. They were the coolest new invention. They were the coolest thing in the universe. It was too bad our parents never had anything this cool.

Then he drew a second Yo-Yo from his pocket. "NO! You'll destroy us all!" we begged, cowering with worry. "Yes" he said quietly. Then he smirked and started in on his prize winning routine. With both Yo-Yos flying around him he looked like a human molecule. My little bull cut flapped in the typhoon wind of his awesomeness.  Little Cody Wanner, a fellow sixth-grader, peed and fainted. This man razzled. He dazzled. He was a Genie-Wizard. And we were his devoted zealots. His routine was the epitome of perfection. So was his salesmanship, for at this moment he performed inception without all the confusing dialogue and planted an idea in our heads. He simply said, "Who wants a YO-YO!" It was not a question. It was a demand. And like a stupefied zombie mob we all chanted in chorus "I DO! I DO! I DO!" At this, we looked at our neighbors-turned-enemies: "You don't want one as much as I do." We turned on each other, biting and scratching, until over the throng rose our Deliverer's voice: "Children, I have one for each of you."

                                                         Soon I graduated to this one

Once we had made it through the passive-aggressive line we started to "practice." This consisted of flaying the Yo-Yos in every direction, hoping that they would come back to us as they had for him. The teachers called for order and began to confiscate (as they have been known to do) but they couldn't stop our overwhelming desire. It was pandemonium. Hundreds of pieces of colored plastic turned into tiny projectiles. Easily retrieved projectiles. We tried over and over to perform Re-entry, much to the dismay of each other. Noses were bloodied. Eyes once full of wonder now began to blacken. In a matter of moments we lay in large heaps bleeding and crying on the floor. Until someone yelled over the moans, "I did it!"

Eventually through the original social networking, also known as "talking," we all soon found out how to Walk the Dog, and Re-enter at our leisure. But like all things trendy, this fad faded. Still though, those were good times. Damn good times. And to this day, ask me to perform Around the World and I can still do it for you. Just make sure to wear a helmet.

PS- I wish this this guy had come to my school.

[Keep following, who knows what I'll come up with next?]

A Hitch In The Road

There’s a little pang of terror deep down. Letting someone in like that. In that moment it’s peculiar how your attention is drawn to the little things. You get hung up on some small detail. And it’s not the detail that keeps your breath high up in your lungs. It’s the fact that all you can focus on is something tiny like that—instead of looking for a gun in his pocket.

The frozen stripes stood hard on the pavement. All I could think was, if I could travel back in time people would freak out if they saw me driving this metal box on wheels at thirty-five miles an hour.  Those yellow road stripes look so short as you speed by, but when you stop they turn out to be longer than your car. I think I was trying to focus on something else to keep my hands from shaking. They were quivering slightly anyway. I’m a big guy; I could defend myself if I had to.

He was nice enough. I would never have done it if I hadn’t seen some kindness in those foggy eyes of his. His beard obscured most of his face like brambles. But that wasn’t the first thing I noticed. He accepted my offer and slung his pack off one shoulder. I said he could toss it in the bed of my little two-seater truck if he wanted. He thought for a second, eyes darting between the tiny cab and the bed, and he and his bag proceeded to get in the front anyway.

He managed to squeeze the gargantuan backpack between his legs. The pack had been patched. Sometimes out of necessity and sometimes for aesthetic purposes. I guess if you don’t have a house to decorate, you decorate your backpack. I noticed pins from bars, American flags, worn out Harley-Davidson patches and what looked like a cufflink stuffed through a button hole. But those weren’t the first things I noticed either. It wasn’t the filthy bedroll, or the sun-bleached camo print of the material, or even the Leatherman knife in his boot—it was the smell. It was a pungent odor of wet dog and oil and earth. And despite my tight-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, all I could focus on was the smell. It had a hundred layers. It was a cave with no bottom.

And then I was suddenly ashamed. For I smelled just as foreign to him: Of shampoo and deodorant and detergent and luxury. I couldn’t change that. But I could give this man a ride, who by no choice of his was trapped in a time where cars didn’t exist. What I could do was save his boots from a few more miles of wear.

So I took a deep breath and asked, “Where ya headed?”

[Keep following. Because you have nothing better to do.]

Poetry Masterwork

So I'm in a creative writing class right now and I just turned this in today as my "Poetry Masterwork." So this is the best I can do at this point. Let me know what you think.

On Arriving Home

A prevailing wind brings with it hints of pressed olives and sun-raised wheat—

the smells of Ithaca.

It fills the sails with speeded flight and caresses time-torn faces.

Of home it breathes, of solace it sings.

The gentle waves lap at the hull,

and push and glide the leaning shoulders to familiar shores.

These few eager travelers, orphaned by fate—

they all smile and thrill—

all but one.

This Odysseus finds a full home so empty,

halls lined with profane suitors

no baptism of blood can purify.

For this warrior has been bathed in flame;

Has borne a bronze crucible—bears it with him still—

battlefields in mind and memory of soul-cracking horror.

Now his haft-calloused hands

find it hard to embrace old companions,

muscle-memory gone, replaced by scars and sinew and salt.

The tired years pass and he now holds a squalling child, where dying men had lain,

And looks past the uneven ends of a stolen life,

on to the horizon, the call of which beckons still.

[Keep following, cuz they be rapin' 'errbody up in here.]

Perhaps I'm Bipolar

You know, I'm usually pretty private about my emotions. But I just got a wave of happy. Sometimes it happens. Lest this disintegrate into a cliche boring blog about how awesome my life is, I'll tell an allegory.

This reminds me of our ridiculous Schnauzer who possessed the biggest ego of any canine I've ever encountered.

Excluding purse-dwellers, most dogs get dirty. Schnapps did. We would plop him in the tub and spray him down--one hand on his back to stop him from shaking off, and the other pouring copious amounts of No Tears shampoo into his fur. He would look up at us with a wide-eyed stare of pure humiliation. I didn't think dogs were capable of emotion until seeing his look that seethed with what I can only describe as unadulterated indignation. Judging from his expression, you'd think we had dressed him up like Lady GaGa. But he would emerge from this experience a new dog. His scrawny frame all too visible, he looked like a glorified sewer rat.

*

But here is the kicker. This little guy would then run around the house in a maniacal fashion, rubbing his wet beard and ears on the carpet. After this little ritual, he would engage us in a "game" both parties only partly understood. He would run around and then stop in front of us, his butt in the air, his forepaws on the ground. This is when we would try and grab him and he would rear up and nip at our hands before sprinting top speed around the house again. His new freedom did not last long, however. Soon he would be scooped up by mom to be brushed. He hated that. Afterward, he looked all fluffy and not manly at all. No matter, the next day he was back to his matted manly self.

 *

The point is, no matter what weighs us down or dirties us, soon we'll be happily bounding to our next crappy moment. So enjoy it while it lasts.

*Artist's Rendition. NOT ACTUAL PICTURES.

[Keep following. I'll be back to normal soon enough and you can feed off my negativity like emo-vampires.]