Hump-day Haiku: State of the Union Address

Everyone saw it.
You can't hide behind your tan;
Eye roll was extreme.

Sitting together,
Faking unity for us.
The smugness still shines.

Standing and clapping
Seems a juvenile response;
It's not a pageant.

Thinking About Writing

I am far too tired and disinterested today to write anything constructive. I thought about inviting a friend to blog for me today, but she declined. She's probably on Facebook, talking to her friends, making plans, and laughing--ha ha ha. I'm so happy for her.

I thought about posting favorite quotes, but I'm not a fan of hanging on to what other people say. I like the way I think about things too much to give control to someone else.

I thought about writing a limerick, but the girl from Nantucket retired.

"Day Before Hump-Day Haiku" just doesn't sound right.

I thought about giving my Oscar predictions, but no one has bothered to campaign for my vote. (How hard is it to send a basket of mini-muffins, Ms. Portman?)

I thought about saying something about the three men outside the window trimming a single bush, but what else can be said about how many men it takes to trim a single bush?

I thought about saying something nice about something, but

I thought about writing about how writing days like this suck, but that's obvious, now, isn't it.

Booby-Trap

How I wish I had a story to tell about a breast getting trapped into thinking it was a pop star, like the title suggests, but I don't. Instead, I've a story that, if you've not eaten, you might want to wait.

Yesterday, the day was fair enough, especially for the middle of January. Minimal snow on the ground. The sun made an appearance for the first half of the day. Pickle, the kitty, ran in and out all day long. And so did the dogs.

Late afternoon, my wife was gracious enough to carry my basket of clean clothes down the stairs, into our bedroom. (In hindsight, she said she should have known because things went from a-okay to what's-that-smell?) The quiet was disturbed by my wife shouting, "I just stepped in shit!"

I thought, 'Dude, that sucks.'

I pictured her naked feet with squishy poop between the toes, or a wool sock with a clump of poop hanging off the bottom. My tummy started turning before I even made my way down the stairs.

Like mostly everything, my wife and I have systems. When it comes to poop patrol, I do the initial removal while she follows behind for cleanup. (Usually I'm alone, outside, picking it up with no further cleanup required.) So with a plastic bag in hand, I turtled my way into my shirt, making sure my nose and mouth were covered and with determination, made my feet climb down the stairs.

I was able to assess the situation as I made my way to the crime scene. Not bad. Not bad at all. Or so I thought. It wasn't until I stepped over the crime scene and turned that I saw it: a perfectly round poop cake, smashed into the tile.

Oh, help me baby Jesus.

I have a weak stomach when it comes to saliva, vomit, penises, and poop. And I knew I was going to have to really get all-up-in-it to get it off the floor.

Gagging. Heaving. Coughing. Almost vomit.

I didn't know what my wife was doing. All I knew was she couldn't stop talking about how there was shit on <her> slipper! Shit-on-my-slipper! Shit! On! My! Slipper! Shitonmyslipper!

I know. I know there's shit on your slipper, and they really are nice slippers--down filled, fluffy and soft--but you have to understand I can't concern myself with your slippers right now. (I will not go into removal detail--my stomach cannot relive it--but I did get through it without making a mess of my own.)

A full Febreze On the Go later (when my wife broke the seal, the smell filled the house like home-made poop cookies baking in the oven,) a Scrubbing Bubbles scrubbing, and a Swiffer Wet onceover (product placement--cha-ching!), the incriminating evidence had been erased. But questions were still asked.

No one--basset nor mutt--was talking.

With the babies' plentiful access to outside, an accident was the last thing that should have happened, leading me to believe it wasn't an accident at all. We were played like a fiddle. Perfect placement and perfect outcome. Bam! Mommy's foot lands in the poop and the babies have a laugh at our expense. Although, once the slipper was clean, we all laughed about it well into the evening.

Two Hours of Bullshit

109. 17.

As I begrudgingly sat through the second installation of the Twilight movie saga last night, I could not get those two numbers out of my head.

I have many issues with Twilight. In all fairness, I tried reading the books, making it to page 140 in the first book before I decided I wasn't going to waste anymore of my life on it. Not only has the word "chagrin" been ruined for me forever, I also had a moral issue with the book.

When did it become permissible for a 109-year-old man to pursue a 17-year-old girl!?

I don't care how young he looks. I don't care if Edward is a virgin. He lived through the Depression. World War I and World War II. He was somewhere when Kennedy was assassinated. He witnessed the passing of civil rights. Bella, on the other hand, was shitting in her diaper when Nirvana hit it big. It's disgusting.

Age difference aside, I didn't mind the first Twilight movie. It was fairly entertaining. However, the second movie was an overwhelming pile of shit. I couldn't shovel it fast enough. I felt like I was watching the same scene over and over during the first thirty minutes:

Bella: I'm nothing.
Edward: You're everything.

Cut! Okay. Let's switch to the woods and do it again!

The script was incoherent and confusing, and there seemed to be absolutely no point.

Don't even get me started on what a pathetic, flip-flopping, boo-hooing, blank canvas that is Bella. The author, Stephenie Meyer, said she wanted Bella's character to be general so that every woman reading the book could see herself in Bella.

What self respecting woman would want to do that!? There is nothing remotely interesting about Bella. She has no guts. No backbone. No personality. Her validation and identity comes by way of the two men who choose to love her. And it's bullshit. Considering how many women--young and old--read the book and loved it, I fear for how those women see themselves. It's no wonder why there is a team for Edward and a team for Jacob, yet no team for Bella.

I can only hope that as the fantasy genre continues to gain popularity and steam, another author will deliver us a heroine worth rooting for. A heroine with substance. A heroine who makes her own decisions concerning the direction her life is heading, never once leaving it up to an old man who hangs out in a high school.

Del and Tiffani Go To a Party

"Oh my god, Del. He's so hot!"

Del turned to look at who her friend, Tiffani, was referring to, curious to see who was hot enough to interrupt their conversation about sneaking out to this weekend's senior party. On the cusp of turning fifteen, Del thought they surely could pass for seniors. They only had to tell their parents a convincing story so they could stay out late, which they were two details away from nailing down. Del recognized the hot guy: everyone knew Jacob.

Tiffani leaned into Del and whispered, "I heard he got Kelly a twenty-five dollar gift certificate to Starbucks for her birthday." Yes, he had. And it was still a pretty big fucking deal. "I'm totally gonna sleep with him at the party if he asks."

Stop right there.

Tiffani, do you even understand what you're saying?

I hate to be the one to burst your bubble, kick your puppy, sink your ship, and blow out your candles, but teenagers don't have good sex. Teenagers like Jacob especially.

You see, Tiffani, unless a New World Order has been issued, Jacob could care less how to satisfy you. After all, he can ask ten girls to sleep with him at the party and eight of them will say yes. You're not so naive to think you're the only one saying these things, do you?

My advice to you, Tiffani, is that if Jacob does ask you to have sex with him, go ahead and do it (just promise you'll make him wear a condom!). No one can stop you crazy kids from doing sloppy, messy, bunny-humping things to each other. But you let him know that if you don't orgasm you're going to tell the entire school that he has a teeny, tiny penis that looks just like a baby carrot when it stands at attention. If that's not enough, you'll also tell everyone he called out his best friend's name--LUKE!--when he came.

One more thing. When you see teenagers--just like you!--having sex in movies or on television, understand that they are faking their way through it too.

Just Once

I once had a woman tell me that every woman should try motherhood once.

Um, I don't think so.

This suggestion, this advice, this idea was in direct response to me saying I had no interest in having a child, birthing, raising, or otherwise. Yet this woman approached the subject like I could try it out; if I didn't like it I could change my mind in twenty or so minutes. As if. A child is a child for life. Yours. Forever. Years and years and years and years and years. While I do have that kind of time, the notion of raising a child is, quite honestly, one of my biggest nightmares.

I have a counteroffer to women who think all women should give motherhood a go: every woman should sleep with another woman at least once. It's not nearly as time consuming as committing to a child. There is little to no commitment, in fact. If you don't like it, you really can change your mind twenty minutes into it. And you might find yourself enjoying it more than you thought.

Huh? Can't see yourself going there? Can't picture staring into another woman's vagina? Too much? Kicks up your gag reflex? Makes you sweat in weird places? You could receive but not give? A nipple in your mouth attached to a woman's breast makes you feel oddly gross? Too creepy? You couldn't relax enough to find it pleasurable? Downright terrifying?

Yeah. Tell me about it. It's exactly how I feel when I think about birthing and raising a child.

Outdated Tradition

Hotels. Motels. Bed and breakfasts. Resorts. No matter where I go, where I stay, there is always a bible knocking around in a bedside drawer. Isn’t this tradition a bit antiquated?   

Unless I need consultation on how to punish my slaves or tend to my livestock, what’s the point exactly? You don’t need to believe in God to be well versed in the Ten Commandments; although, they’re a bit outdated too. (“You shall not murder” needs to make a serious surge to number one. It currently follows keeping the Sabbath day—“in it you shall do no work: you…nor your male servant, nor female servant, nor cattle,” wtf?—holy, and taking the Lord’s name in vain, as well as three others.) As long as you have the basics down, is it not permissible to take a couple days off from reading the scriptures?  

If I weren’t feeling so lazy I would turn to the internet to find out why it started. But like a bride who doesn’t want to know why she wears a veil or gets carried over the threshold, I, too, do not want to know why a bible must adorn a five-star hotel room. I don’t care. I just want it to not be there.

Libraries are free, but I don’t like to handle books that someone else read while eating Cheetos, following their cheesy fingerprints, page after page, to the dramatic conclusion. I end up spending more time wondering what else they did while reading than if the narrator gets out of her predicament. Considering the bible is the holiest of books, I imagine believers feel the same way about a community bible.

I think the bible is there to ensure patrons feel guilty about doing something “naughty” on the comforter so it doesn’t need to be washed after every guest.

If someone told me it was there because without it the hotel would burn to the ground, then sure, I’m all for it. Leave it in the drawer. But seeing how it’s 2011 and not all of us need a book to show us how to be morally responsible, give the bibles to a more fearful, superstitious community. Vacationing hotel guests hardly qualify.

Hump-day Haiku: Road Trip

The initial fun
Is soon confounded by facts:
Four hours to go.

What are you doing?
You can't break on the highway.
McDonalds will wait.

Shoulders and back sore,
The landscape isn't changing;
Whose idea was this?

The City Different

When I'm in Santa Fe I feel like I'm home.

There's a restaurant there dedicated to vegans. To vegans! If chefs there can do it, chefs everywhere can do it, but they choose not to. And the food is phenomenal. I ate a chocolate "cheesecake" last night that made me want to slap my momma.

I feel like I can run! run! run! and keep on running down the quiet residential streets. (It's probably attributed to running at six thousand feet instead of nine thousand feet, but I like to think it's the city breathing life into my lungs and legs.)

My favorite independent bookstore--Collected Works--doesn't ask me to repeat the authors' names of the books I'm looking for. They've heard of the authors I'm referencing and create a connection I crave.

Culture is everywhere, from the art galleries to the men who sell newspapers on the street.

Religion there feels different. It feels like history instead of preaching.

Don't even get me started on the chile. Red or green? When in doubt, let it be Christmas all over again.

People who live in Santa Fe call it the City Different for rightful reasons. There is culture, entertainment, and art. Cormac McCarthy, opera, and ballet. Malls, movies, and macabre. It is a small city with big city culture. There is a serious sense of collective creativity. The city is alive with ideas and when I'm there, I am too.

People Pleasers

I am not fragile. I can handle an onslaught of criticism, varying opinions, and flat-out disagreements.

So stop blowing smoke up my ass.

Unless you're an agent, editor, or publisher, don't tell me what you think I want to hear.

I'm a vegan. So what. Don't act meek and embarrassed when it comes to eating your double cheeseburger with extra bacon and a side of pork chops. Had I not sat next to you you wouldn't think twice about eating two-thirds of an animal.

I'm a runner. Big deal. You don't have to tell me all about how you're going to start running too. If you feel inspired because you're sitting next to me, great, but don't tell me about it. We both know that as soon as I'm out of sight you'll feel differently. Just do it. I'll be glad to discuss it with you after you've been dedicated for a month.

I take my health seriously. Whatever. Please don't tell me how you're going to do something miraculous to change your life. It's boring. You've said it a million times. The more you say it, the more I realize I'm going to be standing over your casket.

I'm not a "health nut". So don't call me one. It's not endearing or a compliment. There is nothing "nutty" about me taking an interest in my quality of life. There is nothing extraordinary surrounding the way I treat my body. What I'm doing used to be called living; now it's called healthy. What you're doing used to be called gluttonous and lazy; now it's called commonplace.

Me? A people pleaser? Not even close.