The natural order of things

I was 23 and I was at a crossroads. I had decided that in order to become a man, and eventually a father, I had to learn some responsibility. To be a family man, I would have to think of someone else before myself: my spouse or children. Therefore, before I could even think about getting married and being responsible for a family, I had to be able to take care of a dog. I set rules like this from time to time. Being the logical and rational person that I am, however, I realized that no responsible person would jump into a relationship with a dog without some sort of background in the care and nurture of another living being. This epiphany resulted in the additional build up towards dog-care through the hierarchy of pets.

First I would get a plant. Something fairly simple, though not as easy as a cactus. I wanted to make sure I would feed it every day. Once I could sustain a modest number of plants I would progress to fish, after which would come reptiles, small mammals, maybe a bird, and eventually a dog. Then, after a couple of years with the dog, the two of us could progress into a relationship with the ideal woman, who very likely, lived somewhere in the immediate vicinity, it only being a matter of time before she happened upon my doorstep requiring some sort of assistance that only I could provide.

It was only a few months before I decided I could move on to fish. Plants didn’t really matter anyway. They were so fickle. Who really knows how much you are supposed to water them anyway? Fish were real. Watering them was no problem, and you feed them for five minutes, once a day. I can do that. Besides, they are cool to watch. Plants don’t ever do much. Fish have personality.

One month and eleven fish later, I was wondering if I would ever get to a dog. I stopped naming the fish because I was using up all of the good names on dead ones. I made a rule that the fish had to live for one month before they earned a name. I had thought about naming the fish after dead people, but that didn’t seem very sporting, kind of like dooming them from the beginning. They’d never live a month if they had self esteem issues. You have to be supportive.

So there I was nurturing the short sporatic lives of goldfish. They were the fancy kind, you know, the ones with poochy bellies, bulbous eyes, and butterfly tails. I don’t know where the snails came from. One day they weren’t there, the next day there were three. The next week there were eight. My fish were dying but my snails were reproducing like it was the end of the world. Maybe fish were a little premature. Maybe I should have started with snails. In the end I had a lot of plants. That’s what algae is anyway. It’s a hell of a lot easier than fish. The snails seem to like it too; I named the biggest one ‘Fish,’ and he seems to have taken to it. At least he hasn’t died yet.

I have heard that the mark of a great chef is someone who can carry on all the necessary tasks to prepare a meal with the proper sequence and timing so that everything comes together at the same time. Likewise, since my responsibility level had been elevated from dust bunnies to gastropods and mono-cellular plants, I felt it was probably time to go searching for that perfect woman. That way, by the time she was moving in, I’d be getting a dog and it would all roll smoothly from there. Everything was unfurling according to plan.

priorities

Today was such a mix of emotions. For one, I had to wake up heinously early, which is never a good start. But then, as I walked down my front steps into the sunrise and saw the orange red flames spilling out through the morning thunderclouds onto the mountains in my backyard, I thought: this may not end up being such a bad day after all.

So I put some Bob Marley on and turned it up (along with my air conditioner at this brutally early juncture because it is HOT at 5am), picked out my favorite smile, and put it on for my drive to work.

I got to work and forgot to take my smile off because Marley was still stirrin it up in my head. When I finally got to my desk, the view out the window was incredible. Below the thick dark damp clouds the ground seemed cool to the touch, and the tops of the clouds screamed white reflectiveness at the indigo sky. It was brilliant; enough so that if you tried not to scream with delight, you would spin around, pump your legs, and throw your head and arms back in one fantastic Peanuts dance of ecstasy.

So my day was decidedly good.

Until my life collided into another's with disastrous consequences.

I was cruising along at quite a healthy clip in my fairly aerodynamic vehicle at the time. It happened just after lunchtime and I was thinking about some qweepish tasking that I had been volunteered for. I never even saw it happen. But somewhere in those last six miles, a small and quite beautiful hawk accelerated out of this world and into the next.

I would like to think that he never saw it coming. That his last thoughts were happy ones. I would like to think that he lived a full life, and had a chance to kiss his she-hawk and hawkids as he left for work that morning. Or if he lived an alternate lifestyle, that he and his hawk life partner had a chance to truly communicate their feelings for each other.

I'd like to think that all hawks always keep that kind of stuff up to speed. One would think we all would.

So this little entry is dedicated to the life and death of that beautiful little bird. May he and his loved ones be blessed.

little shit kitten and I... a love story

There was a time when I lived in the south of Georgia in a little house with four housemates, two of which were cats. One of the cats was a cat and the other was really a kitten that had probably been removed from it’s mother entirely too early. If I remember correctly my housemate had adopted him from a box in front of the Piggly Wiggly on a random tuesday. I’m sure the idea made sense at the time, however it soon became apparent that the little kitten made no attempt to clean up after itself. The little bugger did eventually figure out how to use the litter box, but due to its fairly inappropriate diet (of whatever was available) and the resulting runny cat poop that it led to, the kitten figured out that it felt better if it dragged its rear through the kitty litter before going about it’s day. Unfortunately this meant that you could be relaxing somewhere in the house and a cute cuddly little fecal-encrusted kitten that was coated in kitty litter might find it appropriate to pounce on your face in a playful little cat game. This would happen at random intervals throughout the day.

it was less than entertaining.

Little episodes like this would inevitably end with me holding the little dude at an arm's length as I walked (gagging a little perhaps) into the bathroom where he would hang suspended over a hot and steamy bathtub as it filled into a enormous cat-cleaning reservoir. He would hang there limply by the scruff of his neck for minutes on end until the water was sufficiently deep and then with one last crazy little kitten look, he would lock his gaze onto mine as if to say:

“you think you have me now... but the ferocious little shit kitten will strike again!!!”

there would be a terrifying cackle that would accompany his fall into his sudsy exile.

then the little bugger would kick and squirm for a few minutes until all of the shit fell off and I’d fish him out, dry him off, and go about my day. As time went on, he would come up with new and even less entertaining ways to exact his revenge.

I would close my bedroom door at night, (There are few experiences more unnerving than sharing a bed with a shit kitten) as well at during the day while I was at work, because there is something somewhat invasive about having a shit kitten going through your personal effects while you are away. The challenge was that my bedroom then became the mecca of all kittendom and he would do his best to gain access at every opportunity. His early attempts were barbaric at best. By his reasoning, if he could see under the door, it must be possible to GO under the door. Because the little guy pooped about once every other hour, I think his head had been stuck under the door for approximately 6 hours when I got home from work. He had obviously struggled for the first few hours, based on the perfect snow angel of poop that surrounded his heaving little body. He actually seemed quite grateful when he fell into the tub that time, although his whiskers were crooked for about a week.

After that he took a different approach: rocket kitten...

Little rocket kitten would vary his angle of attack on a daily basis, but every attack involved hiding just out of view until he perceived my door was open wide enough to propel his little shit kitten body through the gap a speed that would preclude me from noticing. The first couple of days ended up being dedicated to refining the parameters of the attack, mostly I think because his whiskers hadn’t fully extended back out, leading him to careen, deflect, or bounce off of various surfaces of the door and doorway. However, after a week of trial and error he had the mechanics reduced to one unknown variable... the location of my legs at the time of ingress. Try and try as he did though, he never gained access as rocket kitten.

however, when one is up against as formidable a foe as shit kitten, there will inevitably be a defeat. I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but I’m fairly sure how it came to pass:

After practicing the art of rocket kitten deflection in the wee hours of the morn, I closed my door and proceeded to the bathroom to take a shower. At some unknown point in the timeline, my housemate, who was ignorant of the dangers of self-propelled shit kittens, ventured into my humble living space to look for a pair of socks (since he had run out of laundry two days before). The devious little animal was probably paralyzed at first with the realization of the flaws of his earlier attempts and the magnitude of the opportunity laid out before him, but it probably took less than a second for him to accelerate to blinding speed and vanish into some dark corner of my room.

when I think back to that morning, I do remember hearing a muffled cackling for a moment before I left for work.

I returned hours later to a house with no kitten in sight. At first it was somewhat comforting, but after searching under the furniture and realizing I could lie down on the couch unmolested, a quiet uneasiness began to take grip in my belly. In a flash it was in my mind, the fear and panic which animated my legs to my doorway, where I flung my door open a found... him. My Nemesis, hot, tired, dehydrated and miserable, sitting in a veritable sea of urine and feces on my down comforter and pillows after THIRTEEN hours of curiously crawling over every square inch of my room.

I picked him up and sat him down on the bathroom floor, gave him some water and cleaned him up and we had a nice long heart to heart. We worked through a lot of things. I told him about my issues with his general sanitation and cleanliness, while he worked through his feelings about sharing of personal space. we really bonded.

After that day, things were great. He cleaned up after himself and I would greet him every morning at my bedroom door. He would follow me into the kitchen and while I was cooking breakfast I’d get a piece of ice out of the freezer for him to bat around the floor. He was so adorable chasing that little chunk of water around.

You could almost say I loved the little shit.

writing

i haven’t really any reason to stop writing. it’s a strange way to think about it really. it would infer that i had a sort of built in reason to start. but i didn’t ...the thing is that i was writing...i just started. and there i was. no reason for it, it just happened. sort of like the big bang i suppose. it’s not like anyone came by and said...”OK, now it is time for the big bang.” and then everything exploded. no. it was just some random time, like 2:37 in the afternoon on a Tuesday and then BANg there was an explosion and stuff was flying out into space with all kinds of horrific velocities and before you knew it there were balls of gas the size of solar systems that were vortexing together and forming planets and stars and stuff. some Tuesday. not anything like last Tuesday, which was more of your general sort of Tuesday. just a regular day that comes after Monday and before Wednesday. which brings me back to writing, and why i never had a reason to stop.
there really isn’t a good reason to stop when you think about it. it’s like an illness with no symptoms...that is unless you really do stop in which case you can come down with all sorts of frightful effects. nervousness and nausea for one. i know they can hit you without warning, especially when you think you have nothing to write about and yet there is something deep down in your psyche that wants to get out. those thoughts almost have their own consciousness actually. they can tear you apart until you have satisfied their own selfish need to define and structuralize them so that they have a chance to stand on their own.
that would be a scary thought actually. a thought that could stand on it’s own and not need a pen in my hand to flesh itself out. it could wander down the streets, inciting arguments and inflaming passion and disagreements as easy and collecting taxes. a desire or a dream that walks and shows itself without any hope of containment or editing. no regard for status quo, or the norm. anything would go and you could bet your bottom dollar that something would come of it that you wouldn’t be fond of.
imagine if you will your most embarrassing moment walking into a dinner party that you have attended with all of your closest friends. the conversation stops and jaws drop as this embarrassing moment makes it’s way to the end of the table and pushes the guest of honor from his/her throne and sits down in their place belching prolifically, and emitting more gas than you would care for.
scary thought, if you think about it. it’s a good thing we have our thoughts under control.
where do they come from anyway. the thoughts i mean. not any in particular..just any of them. the fears the hopes the joys the nightmares the dreams... where was i?

letter to the editor

I apologise for Thursday's little STRESS addition. I was quite tired and really it was more of my fingers moving than anything else. Normally I'm much more calm. Actually, on second thought... I don't apologise....that just had to come out.

stress

fucking knucklefutz...RRAAAAAHHHHHHH.
right now another please. like that. kiss for another world.

breather. on the road mind winding around with thoughts of bubble money
pop gone
faster than i can blow bubble blow snap
gone. presently love holding embracing warm circles inside my heart
fire apart flames licking across distance near flicker lickering
snap
shock electric realization through the circle ring to bubbles snap
pop gone
flicker lickering want pulling yearning proximity racing inward around
orbiting loudly internal screams muffled by lungs ribs and skin
quiet to the ears
bone scream

worried

a queer agitation and melancholy can sneak up on a guy if he’s not careful. it seems if one tries to focus too much energy on not worrying about something it can get to the point where he’s got all kinds of twisting and pulling and uncomfortable warmth in the depth of his stomach. it just makes you want to eat something to make it go away. anything really, although something cool and smooth like cottage cheese really sounds soothing...or jello.

or jello and cottage cheese.

oh that reminds me of when i was a little kid. coming home after school and finding a box of jello in the fridge and making it. it was so magical to put hot water into a powder and dissolve it all up before putting it into the fridge where it got all stiff and jelly-ey. then i would try and make it last and i would hide the bowl of jello in the back of the fridge as if no one would be able to find it. but of course they would, leading me to decide that if i wanted it all to myself i had to eat it in about two sittings, which of course led me to eating a ridiculous amount of jello.