Week 13 - Daydreaming

I have this certain proclivity of biting my nails when I am thinking. I only ever realize that my nails and cuticles are worn down to the nub until after my brain stops chugging along like a locomotive barreling towards a cliff. And this happens all the time. I daydream while at work. I daydream while at play. I daydream while I eat. I daydream in the bathroom especially (it is known as the thinking room for a reason). I am always dreaming.

Mindlessness is not my forte. In fact it is impossible. While at work, I don't just do, I think about what I am doing. I think about how I am doing it. Can I do this better? Could I be doing something else? Should I be doing something else? Do I want to spend the rest of my life doing this here, or do I want more than this?

Many people I have worked with barely think beyond the day thy woke up in. Only a few think a year ahead. Fewer still think decades beyond their current place in time. Most of the people I have worked with about sleeping with as many girls or boys they can instead of finding that one girl or boy that can give them what they are really looking for. They think about how they don't get paid enough, griping and complaining, instead of working to get a raise or plotting how they can get a better job.

Many of the people I have worked with think about how to get back at people who have wronged them instead of thinking of ways to help others and forgetting the past, allowing the control that hate has on their lives to break away. A few who think far ahead think of going to school, choosing a profession that with gross them a pretty penny, instead of choosing a profession that might fulfill them; “Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life.”

I confess that I have thought some of these same things, but I mostly think of who I want to be when I am old. How do I want to be remembered when I am gone. In the history of the world, few people are written about. Even fewer are truly remembered; taught about in school; history channel specials made about them. Will I be one of those people? Likely not. But living a life striving to be better certainly has other benefits. A life mostly free of conflict. Many friends and few enemies. A great memory for your posterity. A reward in eternity from a happy God.

I am a daydreamer, there is no way around it. Does it make me better than those around me who think of fickle and fleeting desires? Certainly not. But it does mean I am in serious need of a manicure.

Prompt 57 - Summer Vacation

Waking up at 10am with bedhead and in desperate need of a shower that last nights skateboard excursion helped bring about due to the hours of skating across town, tearing up the streets and having the time of our lives free to do as we please, go where we please; and do it all free of homework, tests, and often, fortunately or unfortunately, all without parental supervision to let us know that it was all quite dangerous and potentially adverse to our health; bumping into drunks and the homeless unaware if they were sane and realizing all too often they they were not as they asked to climb onto one of our boards and glide down the street just as one would expect a drunk to do, almost killing themselves while we stood nervously and laughed about leaving the house at 11pm to skate after eating so late; most likely pizza and a bottle of soda; imperfect fuel for a perfect day going out into the woods and playing guns, building forts; grass stains and mud on our faces, letting our imaginations not only run wild, but giving them a form and structure as we assembled our battlegrounds in the forests and fought tirelessly to take the next hill and explore uncharted territory, occasionally stumbling onto private property, or city property; all very exciting and dangerous to a bunch of stupid kids spending their summer day inviting friends over to play video games; cereal and milk in unending supply; TV's and consoles scattered throughout the house along with pillows and blankets, tangled wires and sore muscles, shouts of laughter filling every room, every space a memory and every person a story of a day waking up at 10am with bedhead and in desperate need of a shower.

Prompt 59 - Bathroom Humor

Have you ever pooped your pants? This isn't a joke. Really! Have you ever dropped a deuce in your knickers? You probably won't admit it, but I bet you have. All of us have likely, at one point or another, soiled our drawers. And I'm not talking about when you were in diapers. I'm talking about grown men and women doing what only babies and the incontinent do. You might have had a little to much Tabasco on that taco. Or maybe a roller coaster ride that went up and down a little to fast for your bowels to bear. Whatever it was, it probably wasn't pretty. But you don't have to live in the shadows any longer like some gravy thief. Today we exorcise some demons.

I'm sorry. Is this to gross and immature for your refined, one percenter tastes? Do I offend you and your penchant for sophisticated oratory and traditional literature? Well deal with it. Your distaste for the subject is a clear sign that you yourself have, in fact, pooped in your pants and you would care to forget the incident. You are far too transparent.

A friend of mine seemed to be almost proud of his number two tragedy as he iterated it to me one day, a huge grin on his face. He told he had been in a local pizza place eating with some friends. They were doing a little crop dusting on the people sitting around them when things went terribly awry. On his final attempt, he tried to fart and felt a little extra something sneak out. He didn't get up, however. He was afraid that whatever had happened, it might “happen” right down his leg if he stood up. So he just sat there until he was certain it was safe to abscond, his friends laughing the whole time.

It reminds me of a famous pant soiling episode that was unfortunately brought to America's attention when famous weatherman and Today Show anchor, Al Roker, confessed to his own diarrhea debacle. On live TV, Roker said that on a visit to the White House, he was walking down a hallway alone and felt that he had to fart. Now at this point I was thinking “terrorism!” Al said that he let one loose and accidentally pulled the brownies out of the oven before they were done. (My words, not his). He said that he ran to the nearest bathroom and unloaded the irreparably damaged underwear into the White House waist basket. Can you imagine the surprise the cleaning lady got the next day! He went commando for the remainder of his presidential visit. Al, however, has a “condition.” What was my excuse?

I was at school and in class. My stomach suddenly began to churn like an Amish butter maker. I tried to wait and just let it subside but sometimes the trash has to go out before the bag is full if you know what I mean. I asked to go to the bathroom and shimmied out the door and down the hallway with my butt clenched like a coke head at a drug bust. I made it to the bathroom and slammed the stall door and prayed that no one else would walk in. Like our friend Al, I had a clean up on aisle two. I did the best I could to repair the sail but this ship was going to have to stay away from the shoals if you know what I mean. It has happened a few times since but has been in the comfort of my own home, where a fresh pair of underpants is a dryer sheet away and there is no fear of a rickety stall door separating you from a very embarrassing nickname. My excuse? Crohns. It's the best explanation I can muster.

We have all done it. It's like slipping on ice. It's funny when it happens to some grandma, but when its your nana, not so much. But we don't have to be ashamed anymore that we may have fed the fish once or twice in a movie theater or a church service. It's OK. Al Roker said so. So don't be afraid to share your elimination expositions. Exorcise those demons and be free of the shame. Let that flag wave high. Just make sure it is cleaned first.

Prompt 61A - 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover

1. Dump them
2. Lose them
3. Tell them they stink and hand them a stick of deodorant
4. Jump out of a highrise window
5. Throw them out of a highrise window
6. Badmouth their momma
7. Go on a TV show and tell the world about their secrets
8. Go on a TV show and fail to say “I love you.”
9. Go on a TV show and embarrass yourself to the point that the episode becomes a viral Youtube video
10. Kick their pet dog
11. Yell “heads up” and toss them a kitchen knife
12. Wet the bed a few times
13. Steal their car and go on a high speed chase with police
14. Get caught on a Ballpark Kiss Cam and don't kiss them
15. Buy them a hotdog for their birthday (unless its an adorable inside joke)
16. Tear the head off their favorite stuffed animal in a touchdown dance
17. Find out that your boyfriend has stuffed animals
18. Play a practical joke on them by peeing on their toothbrush
19. Smack their butt in front of your church
20. Fart in church
21. Carelessly drop a Christmas candle and accidentally ignite the church
22. Crash the children's Christmas program by running on stage in a spandex onesie
23. Start your own church dedicated to them and create little clay statues with their face on it surrounded on a shrine in your living room by an assortment of demonic looking candles
24. Tell them you're gay
25. Crash their car into a sardine factory
26. Forget your anniversary (If they are female)
27. Forget their birthday (If they are female)
28. Forget the Superbowl (If they are male)
29. Tell them you are moving to china to work with children and then accidentally see them at the supermarket after you didn't go
30. Tell them your favorite movie is Birth of a Nation
31. Tell them you thought Schindler's List was a riot
32. Tell them your favorite President is Bush (if they are liberal)
33. Tell them your favorite President is Obama (if they are conservative)
34. When she asks you if she looks fat in a particular garment just say “Do you...!?”
35. Smoke crack
36. Drink bleach
37. Wash their favorite color shirt with the whites in bleach
38. Blow up the house by incorrectly wiring the water heater
39. Tie them to the bed and steal their credit card
40. Take dancing classes and enjoy the dance with the teacher a little too much
41. Suggest they get implants
42. Turn off the TV right when their favorite show has reached the climactic finale and tell them that too much TV is bad for your health
43. Buy them a weight loss DVD
44. Convert to Scientology
45. Enter a convent
46. Convert to Judaism and botch the circumcision
47. Duck tape their eyebrows and rip it off
48. Tell them you're a Lakers fan
49. Tell them you're a Yankees fan
50. Don't compromise; don't communicate; don't give them your time, your energy, or your attention; and for goodness sake, make sure you only TELL them you love them, not SHOW them you love them.

Week 12 - Outburst

Where do you get off? Who do you think you are? I'm not an idiot. I know when I being talked down to. You take most of what I say and throw it in the garbage like a moldy sandwich! Excuse me Zeus! Why don't you inscribe your forked tongue proclamations on a scroll and shoot them down on a lightning bolt from Mount Olympus?! I could probably do most of this myself. And likely far better than you ever could! Do I look like an infant that needs my diaper changed? The hubris you must have to think that your decrees are without fault, when the evidence of their unrivaled stupidity is right before your eyes! Is your name Ronnie Milsap!? Could you for just, one , moment, have the humility to admit your fault? No! My suggestions to you are the equivalent of a fart. You know it has to happen but you hate the smell. Well light a Yankee Candle pal cause there is more where this came from!

What a sorry excuse for a human being you are. If I had to choose between you and a steaming pile of cat feces, I'd go grab a pooper scooper. What goes through your mind anyways? That this whole thing would fall apart if occasionally I lent a hand? Well it's already falling apart and I have barely pulled my hand out of my pocket to scratch my butt! If it was raining and Noah was outside building an ark holding God's blueprints right in his hands, you would probably run out and tell him he's doing it wrong. Unfortunately for you, the boat you have made is so full of holes from the contradictory statements you have made that you would sink faster to the bottom than a “rat” in an Irish mob. There is literally no end to the asinine things that spill out of your fat mouth. I'll tell you one thing, If I could say what's on my mind mind I'd...

“Sorry about that,” says my coworker. “It was a stupid thing to say. Do you forgive me?”

Crap. What a jerk am I?

“Yes.”

Prompt 55 - In the Hands of the Blacksmith

The blacksmith compresses the billows and the dim coals of the forge come to life. He puts on his gloves and cloak. His tools are right where he left them. Unmoved, they sit neatly right next to the anvil. The blacksmith retrieves a bent metal shaft from a neighboring scrap shelf. The metal parts and pieces look rusty and old. They are misshapen and broken, unusable in their current state. The blacksmith doesn't see them as old or broken, however. He sees potential.

The blacksmith nestles the old metal rod under the hot charcoal. The fire burns brightly. It is almost hypnotizing as it shifts and flickers, heating the metal rod burrowed inside its heart. The fire purifies. It make the metal soft, malleable, moldable, changeable. The blacksmith carefully pulls the red hot metal rod from the furnace and goes to work.

Striking the iron over and over he begins to shape the once hard and rigid alloy. The hammer pummels the rod over and over. The blacksmith wipes his soot covered brow and slides the rod back into the fire. He does this over and over, compressing the billows; heating the furnace, molding the iron. He forces his will upon the metal rod, a specific purpose in mind.

Like a conductor, he crafts the rod according to his own vision. His anvil, his hammer, his tongs, his forge; all his instruments. Like the metal rod here and now, these tool had already bent. They had already been shaped and molded by the blacksmith. Once resistant and cold, the fire had made them pliable and weak. But the blacksmith folded them over and over, strengthening them again. Now stronger. Now they were merely an extension of the blacksmiths creativity. Once on the scrap shelf, now with a purpose.

The newly fashioned metal, red hot from the burning coals is plunged into a vat of cooled water. A billowy plume of steam pours out, clouding the air, as the water bubbles and hisses. The steel hardens, its final shape solidified. Shaped by the blacksmith, its purpose sealed. A tool. The blacksmith smiles and sets his newest creation down on the table. Down next to his anvil, his hammer, his tongs, his forge. Once on the scrap shelf, now in the hands of the blacksmith.

Prompt 54 - I Thought, I Said

I thought, “I want to accompany you so bad. You have no idea.”

I said, “I'm busy a I can't can't cancel. But if you would like to do something later...”

I thought, “I would love that huge piece of chocolate cake.”

I said, “No thanks. I'm full.”

I thought, “This is stupid.”

I said, “I'm in!”

I thought, “I'm never going to do that ever again. I swear.”

I said, “Just one more time...”

I thought, “That may be the ugliest thing I have ever had the misfortune of laying eyes on.”

I said, “It's beautiful!”

I thought, “Gimme, Gimme, Gimme!”

I said, “Oh no. Please. You seriously didn't have to.”

I thought, “I really don't want to talk right now. I just want to go home and sit and drool and eat.”

I said, “Yes? What was it you wanted to ask me?”

I thought, “What if something terrible happens. If it does, I have no idea what to do.”

I said, “Nothing is going to happen. Even in the small chance that it does, I've got this...”

I thought, “Right now, there is nowhere else I would rather be.”

I said, “Right now, there is nowhere else I would rather be.”

http://onemillionfootnotes.blogspot.com/

3479: He thought “,” and He Said “.”