Lake Nest Syndrome

They found The Lock Ness Monster, but it was just a baby. A human child. They pulled him out in a net with a backhoe. Then he started leaking water. When he stopped, they assumed he was about a year old, not much more.

Scientists did science on him to figure out what was happening, but he just cried. They found a mother for him, but he still cried. She took great care of him, fed him, loved him. But he only stopped crying to sleep. If you watched him sleep, you could tell he was crying in his sleep.

So they put him back in the water. They trained him to sail, and sometimes he smiled when the boat rocked. Everyone was excited.

When he was thirteen, he went sailing alone in a storm. His boat was found crushed at harbor, and his mother was scared. A group of men found him swimming to shore the next night. His mother married one of those men.

His father and mother saved all they could and asked all around for donations. They got him a sea-worthy sailboat when he was 18. They never saw him again. His mother just cries.

The Ocean Is Coming.

I've got a phobia of the ocean. I've always had a problem with deep water, because I never really learned to swim. And, the ocean is like an ocean's worth of water, so I learn to swim even less in the ocean. It's a fear of dying. Drowning is not really a concern. We're all drowning all the time, it's how we live. If there were an instruction book on life, the advice would be much like this (Just replace the words "Mass Effect" with "being alive").

The problem  with me having this phobia is my relationship to the ocean. The Red Hot Chili Peppers say it best "Under water, where thoughts can breathe easily, far away you were made in the sea. Just like me." I feel I truly was made in the sea, long ago, before the sea was something that life realized was different than land. I feel a maternal connection to the ocean. In the deepest parts of me, I respect her, love her, and long for her. She feels the same towards me, or so I imagine.

She may want the best for me wherever that is, but she'd prefer that I come and see her once and a while, even often if that's possible. So you know what she did? She went and put things that I want right off the coast, so I'll move nearby, and whenever I've got time, I'll spend it with my motherly friend, lady ocean. She organized a place where my passion, my interests, and even some family are all nearby. As all mothers are, she's manipulative, so she even tricked her good friend, the weather, to be nice while I'm there too. She's prepared a calm dinner-party with exquisite food, elegant decor, ravishing ladies, smooth drinks, and hammocks. I'm the guest of honor.

That's my working model of who the ocean is. It is appealing, I can't lie (I'm actually a skilled liar, this is just a turn of phrase kthx?). But this vision of the ocean produces a new phobia, one that impacts me much more than my fear of water and dying. I see an opportunity, but I also see a trick, a trap, a troll. What if I change there? What if the sea air, the humidity, the fake smiles turn me against the sea of mountains that I've learned to love? What if I can never come back? What if I die a living death, and I'm cursed to wander a superficial plane of honest hard work, fulfillment, and flocks of sea birds as a ghastly Conquerer of Shambala whose soul has dripped out of his ears from all the praise, money, and worldly and spiritual pleasures that I attain?

I fear that my mother ocean, in her insatiable lust for my company has not taken into account the type of man who might develop from a stony and dry home. I fear that she has not considered what I might become if my arid spongy skin is exposed to the elements, her elements, for a lifetime. But the ocean is coming, one way or another.

________________________________________________


Thanks to everyone who voted. I should have a silly little story for you up soon.

In case you're wondering, I'm considering moving to California, likely the San Diego or Anaheim area.

Though I doubt you'll heed to my request here, please comment on any advice that you've got for someone with my condition or comment with any amounts of money that you're willing to donate to help me overcome my phobia, which cripples my heart, drags me through mud, reticulates splines, eats my beef, cures my pork, and steals my Pokemon.

Votes are for voting.

Vote for the subject below that you love most. If you outvote everyone else, you get to make me write about your favorites! Cool huh? Cool. Pick one and vote for it on the right side of your screen. I'm recycling some that people have asked me to put up for voting again. If your 


1: I'm afraid of the ocean only because I might decide to stay. I'll feel like I've found a real home.


2: Appearances can be deceiving, but they try not to. 


3: Only say what's in your heart - that is to say, be silent please.


4: Old traditions are the worst. New traditions are the... worst.


Vote time. Cool.

Harvey's Soap.

Harvey's wife had bought the wrong soap. She knew it. At least, he knew that she knew it. It was obvious anyways. The soap he always bought for himself was a tan color, this was blue. He didn't have time, so he made the mistake of asking his wife. Of course she ruined this too. She was getting back at him for something, but he didn't care what.

His face dry and probably cracking, he went to work like every day. Like every day he took the same ride up to the elevator, took the same route past that prick Ricky's office, Laura, that bitch, David's uptight secretary. Harvey sat in his lonely cubicle. Emails e-meetings, online poker. He finished his work by lunch. He'd usually hang a sign saying "Harvey Out" on his cubicle and head to the bar when this happened.

Harvey couldn't eat at lunch. He couldn't do anything. He obsessed over how dry his face was. Scratching it, rubbing his eyes, and then he obsessed over the zits he'd get from touching his face. Then a moment of clarity, finally. He saw his co-workers in their little cliques, they were holding him back, always shooting him down. But he knew who they really were, and he'd get them back. He watched them until lunch was over. Everyone walked back to their fake ass little lives, David, his secretary, Laura and Ricky. Harvey wondered what his wife was doing, what would she do next to get back at him?

Harvey stood tall once he was sure they were all back to work. Pulling something from his briefcase, he took the same route past Ricky's office, Laura... He hung up his sign, erased the marker and wrote "Harvey wins." He drove home instead of to the bar.

"Oh, you're home early," Harvey's wife said. There she goes, Harvey thought, being the fucking genius she is. Harvey kissed her and sat down at the table. "Do you want me to make you a sandwich?"

"No, I just had lunch." But, Harvey hadn't eaten. They heard sirens. Harvey's wife looked out the window.

"Oh, maybe Mrs. Lewis fell again, the police are there."

"Maybe they'll come here too," Harvey said back to her.

"Don't be silly, why would th-"

Harvey kissed his wife again, against the wall. He groped her breast with one hand, held her waist with the other. Then he pulled away. He leaned down to grab his briefcase, smiled up at his wife, and said "let me just go over and see if they need any help." Another siren rang, another police car. Harvey's wife winked at him and headed for the bedroom.

Harvey pulled something from his briefcase once he walked into Mrs. Lewis's yard. The police shot him down.

We may be men but... fuh this, Jason beat me to it.

I guess there's a "talk about how dudes are feminine" vibe in the air. Most of you (there are 8 of you) voted for number four, asking me to talk about my skin and soap and showering and stuff.  Well, Jason beat me to it... I was really hoping that you'd all vote for "yes," and then I could make some clever joke about it. If you had, we wouldn't be in this predicament. But, even though it's certainly your fault, please blame the following mess on me. Anywaysss,

Whether or naught Jason told my idea for a blog "how does it feel to be in the rapesack," I still have a loose obligation to write about something that has to do with showering, dudes, and skinsoaps.

Soap, (see skinsoaps) every dude that knows his ass from a hole in the ground wishes that he was Tyler Durden. We wish that we made soap, we wish we bung Helena Bonham Carter (but not in all of her movies), we wish we didn't have to pay for food, and we wish that we knew our food didn't have good ol' bad human fluids in them. But really, we want to be trailblazers, that's why we wish we were Tyler. There's just something about blazers and taking them on trails that gets dudes all riled up and ready for milk's favorite cookie (Oreo ofc).

If you're looking to bed a sexy man, then just trick him into thinking that doing so will change the way he sees the world and free him from the bonds of societal expectation. If you're trying to bed a man that you don't think is sexy, you have self-esteem issues.

Transition (pretend there is a transition paragraph here).

Some women and some other women call men dogs. Rightfully so, men are similar to dogs in the following ways:

• we breathe very hard out of our noses when we get excited
• we cry when we are hurt 
• we die with honor 
• we bleed when we are cut 
• we love cheese (really, we can't help ourselves) 
• we hump furniture
• we are loyal to a fault (just the one)
• we love eating from bowls
• we love the literary genius of Charles Dickens 
• Magnets, how do they work? (No link? Really? You must be slacking, Mark.)

Those are the only similarities. This list is 100% comprehensive and verified by science. Any other similarities you may see should be viewed as an error in logic and really just a lack of research on your part. Know how we're way different from dogs? Dogs hate showers, like all the time.

But dudes love showers. If you want to know exactly what kind of crazy a guy is? Watch him shower. If you want to rile a dude up like he's just gone trailing with his blazer? Shower with him (see shower with a dude). Want to get a dog scared for his life? Make him take a bath or shower. And your dog could care less if you shower with it, it just wants the eff out of there, by any means necessary. I've seen a dog rob an old lady just to get out of bathing. Maybe the whole dog analogy is a little flawed.

Well, there's my completely disjointed blog entry for this week. However, I did get a 3 out of 3 on talking about dudes, showers, and skinsoaps. So praise me.

As of yet, I don't think anyone has actually left a comment on what I asked them to. So this time just comment on whatever you feel like. The weather's good. Gibberish is fun, roman numerals. No one cares. I care.

I took a week off. Time for voting again.

** Voting Closed, number 4 wins **

First off, I took a week away from this mr. blog to do my finals. Get sad about it k?

This time I decided to (realized that I could) do the polling with a gadget on the side of the screen. It should be over here------------------------>
Somewhere.

The four subjects about which I may write about this week are:

#1: I'm afraid of the ocean only because I might decide to stay. I'll feel like I've found a real home.

#2: I never hope to be wise. I would rather watch the wind blow, waters swell. In a world where the carnal is at odds with wisdom, I choose happiness.

#3: Appearances can be deceiving, but they try not to.

#4: Yes, we're men, but we still care how our skin feels after a shower.

Vote on the items above inside of teh item over there and then what wins will get written about. If you vote by commenting like the past, I'll laugh. Cool? Cool.

** Voting Closed, number 4 wins **

I want students to wish I never lived.

First, my apologies for being all sorts of late this week. Well, I apologize if you cared at all. If you didn't notice, no apology. It's only my second week and I fall behind. What was I thinking starting a blog just before finals? Comment below if you have the answer.


Anywaysss. The winning line this week is "I want mine to be the poetry that needs footnotes, words that need defining. I want to write from the past forward. I want students to wish I never lived." First, This line only works the way that I intended it to based on a specific premise. I must be remembered for my writing. 


That minor detail aside, (no one could forget meeee. Right?) why will future college dudes tell girls they like me when trying to capture their clothes? What is it about MY work that everyone will remember? I'll start answering this question backwardsly. I'll start why I'm not memorable.


I'm not a master of form. If anyone remembers my poetry (they won't), it's unlikely they'll care about how I distributed my syllables, developed my rhyme scheme, or how I actually am a haiku instead of a human... or instead of cumin, I'm not cumin. 


I don't want young sexy minds to learn from me that they are the master of their words. "But can't people learn that from any great writer?" Good question. I don't care. It doesn't matter if my work demonstrates this concept better than everything. Words aren't a square-peg round-hole sort of thing. All kids are gonna' take my round words and put them in whichever hole they want, but if I were to choose which hole to put my stuff into...


My legacy should be as absurd as my work, as my life, as my mind... as my cumin. I want professors to profess that my work demonstrates the eternal concept of wormhats, or that the earth is the sun's sandwich, just waiting to be punched. Or perhaps they should teach their students that my work demonstrates that anything funny or odd is also ironic... 


I'll take anything, if my work is taught in school, I'll be happy, or my ghostofme will be happy, but if I get to choose, I want my work to remembered, in a conventional way, for that which defies convention.


****


So, the real reason this blog post was so late is that I got distracted by this. (Winky face)


I don't see an obvious theme for what you should comment on for this blog, it was pretty self-indulgent, and doesn't really involve much of you (me), as my audience. So, comment below with your favorite drinky-poo and/or your favorite clothes. Or anything, that works.

A Publisher's Dream

If I were to write
and you were to read
and I confuse
and you were confused
Does that make us twins, brothers? enemies?

If I were to write
and you were to lie
and I were to die
and you lie
I prefer that my words outlive your lie.


****

Numbers 1 and 2 tied in votes, so I voted myself to break the tie (I voted for number 1, k?). I decided to swap the blog and poem dates for this week because otherwise I will fail my classes and therefore fail at graduating. I feel no sorrow for any inconvenience this caused you. Well, maybe a little sorrow.

As always, post comments as you please. Knock yourselves out, make yourself feel important.

Get tha vote on!

**Voting Closed**


Here are my subjects upon which you can vote this week! Enjoy them. Vote them.


#1: I want mine to be the poetry that needs footnotes, words that need defining. I want to write from the past forward. I want students to wish I never lived


#2:  I never hope to be wise. I would rather watch the wind blow, waters swell. In a world where the carnal is at odds with wisdom, I choose happiness.


#3: We've always preferred the frigid over the lush. We'd have a pet warthog, not a cat, and we'd rather die frozen on a winter mountain than be buried in a flowery meadow.


#4: Yes, we're men, but we still care how our skin feels after a shower. 


There's 1 less this week than last, so... vote on which one you would like for me to write about by commenting below please!


(smiley face)


**Voting Closed**

Save The Planet by Punching Holes in The Planet.

“Great news!”

“Hit me.”

“Josh Ashby died.”

“That’s the kid that?”

“Yeah, the Make-A-Wish kid. You won’t have to drill any more holes man.”

It was great news to most people. But I needed that dying little shit to stick around. Josh Asby is a – was a foul smelling little sadistic ass, no one liked him, no one wanted him. He was just the wrong kid for a rich man to get behind, and I was there to clean his mess up… and cleaning up some messes pays really well.

The news: “Fourteen-year-old mad scientist Josh Ashby reportedly died in his sleep this morning of leukemia.” The reporter speaks in an upbeat tone with a mad celebration in the background. Everyone’s excited that he’s dead, hell, I am a little bit, but my future just got a hell of a lot dimmer.

I drill holes for a living. I pick an open field, with at least a five-mile radius, and I drill a hole a little over 400 miles down. Sounds crazy as shit, but people can do some amazing stuff with the right incentive. Anyway, without getting too technical, I had to drill deep enough that I can catch and interrupt gamma light waves sent to the core. Craziest part was, it only took one person to set the drills up and get everything running.

Ashby was the reason I had to drill these holes in the first place. He was some sort of kid genius, but he got leukemia from one of his failed experiments. There was a huge public outcry to help his smart ass, and so Make-A-Wish jumped in. They told him they’d give him any one wish he wanted, so he chose to blow up the Earth.

I guess he had invented some gamma ray that’s supposed to change matter real fast. Theoretically, if he can concentrate this beam enough, it can penetrate to the Earth’s core, and cause some terrible chemical reaction large enough to cover the surface in molten lava. I don’t buy that the thing actually works, but they sent me out to stop it.

They tried to assassinate the kid, and of course Make-A-Wish wouldn’t endorse killing everyone, but some idiot billionaire rescued the kid and put him into hiding. Soon enough, some scientists confirmed that crazy light waves were bouncing off the earth’s core, so they got to stopping it.

They hired me to work the drills and disrupt the light signals, but since that was over… I had nearly a quarter billion dollars of debt for this giant drilling platform, and no more world threat meant no more job. I’m fucked.

If I sold my drills, it’d be at a huge loss, they weren’t set up for normal industrial use. Bankruptcy looked imminent, plus, I’d have to find some normal fake-ass job. I wouldn’t be able to tell women that I saved the planet for a living either. There goes my sex life.

I was all set up to start a drill that day too. It’s my favorite part, starting a hole. Hearing the drills grind, the earth moan, there’s nothing like it. Once it gets a few miles down, you can’t tell it’s working anymore. There was no point in starting the drill though, they’d probably complain I was wasting energy.

I was pissed, worried, numb. I got hammered. I started a bar fight, lost. I was about ready to just end it. Start my drill up, I’d jump into that hole and just get ground up into the earth and all that metal. I’d die the way I always wanted to live, raw, loud, cold, perfect. So I got all my things in order. Left a note, told my mom I loved her. Emptied my fridge, I was going to donate everything I could to some kid in Africa.

Then I checked my bank account… there was the deposit, $1.4 million, my normal check. Well, I guess if they were still paying me, it was still my job to drill holes.

Tell me what you think or whatever you want to tell me... If you love to.