Day III: Tarot

Is it a universal law that when you're the most financially strained, you are suddenly deemed capable of paying for everything on your own? Or is growing up just the worst?

I've been paying almost every bill of mine on my own for the last three years, but I managed to eek my phone out of my dad until today when my new bill arrived. And by 'eek' I most certainly mean: "Oh, sure, I'll send you a check every month, just tell me how much it is, and remind me, too, or I'll probably just forget." Believe me, I didn't forget the bill came. I just never, ahem, remembered to send a check along! I can be so silly like that. Alas, I finally arrived at that disgusting and sad stage of life where I can finally say I am financially independent. You would think that would be a glorious feeling.

It's not. It's rotten.

The upside is that sometimes I can't afford to eat so I am looking sickening. (It's sarcasm, Mother, I can afford food. It's meant to be a humorous poke at how poor I am.)

Back of my scary-ass Tarot deck

What I really wanted to talk about this afternoon, though, is this: even though you shouldn't be jealous of the monetary plight of your 24-year-old friends, you should be exceedingly envious of a certain weekly email thread I contribute to. Every week, Vaughn, Kelly, Annie, and I email each other our tarot readings and journal about them. We take the psychic's interpretation of the drawn card and then offer our own feelings about what we've been dealt. It's amazing. I suggest you do the same.

While you'll not find my most private entries up for the world to see, I did want to share my reading for today because it's just as spooky and magicky as you might expect tarot to be.

"The nine of pentacles symbolizes that you are no longer in a position to be dependent on others for your own financial or emotional security."

I actually said: OH SHIT when I read that opening line from the psychic. 

Cue the Twilight Zone music, I need to make that money.

The lesson of the night: "The nine of pentacles is urging you forward. It's time to embrace and rely on your own independence."

Day II: Vacation

Doesn't a vacation sound so nice?

My roommate, Kyle "Jenny Chrysanthemum" Jensen,  just returned to the United States after a week-long stay in Costa Rica. To say I was envious would be an understatement. A comical one. A massive one. He stayed at this beautiful, all-inclusive resort with endless mimosas and pools with bars. Like bars in the pool. IN THE POOL, YOU GUYS. I am sure there were turtles that swam up with plates of cheeses and crackers. Or maybe dolphins that transported you to different pools. Don't worry, I am sure there were seashell-lined pathways for those not comfortable riding one of the most playful--and sexually active!--animals on earth.

Ah, yes, it must have been rough.

I can only assume I would commit terrible, horrific acts to spend a week somewhere like that. If you value your life or your home or your family or your sanity, I'd rather not hear about your glorious trip to Guatemala or how stunning Sao Paulo is in the spring. Scout's Honor: I will steal that trip, your identity, and your soon-to-be-tanned skin just to experience a break from this frozen landscape. Gary Paulsen, eat your heart out.

Then I realized: you don't need to travel abroad or hop on a cruise to take a vacation. In fact, at any minute, even this very passing second, anyone can take a break from the monotony of computer screens and swiveling desk chairs. And it's all thanks to this guy:

Day I: Budger

I’m fortunate to have a job where I am afforded a little bit of time in the afternoon to recharge my batteries. Whether it’s a walk through a far-too-crowded skyway, a lazy jaunt to Caribou—the one with the cute staff, obviously, not that other shit show upstairs—or the anxious-cum-rewarding hunt for your stomach’s most private desires, the 1:00 timeslot is the single most relaxing portion of the workday. Yes, lunch is one of those sacred times: a rare moment when everything is right in the world.

And sometimes there's that one person who just has to ruin it for you.

Not pictured: crying children waiting in line

Hey, lady, yes you. I am talking to you. You in the lavender jacket and felted cap. You in your unassuming UGG knockoffs. You with the purse and the fake cold and just so much change jangling in your coat pockets!

You guys: this shady bitch.

So it's probably pretty frowned upon to make so much out of such a small event. But my lunch was irrevocably ruined by this little thing who thought age--and a little delirium--gave her the right to just barge on up to the counter. Listen, I undertand that she didn't really understand the concept of the massive queue patiently waiting their respective turns. But which part of Minneapolis are you usually in that you can just walk up to the bank counter at LUNCHTIME and expect to be the first one helped? 

I must have made quite the face behind this little lilac. The teller--didn't catch her name, but she's always so sharply dressed and bubbly--caught my glance, and her eyes sparked to life. She must have seen the rage coursing over my pupils because she assisted that little old toad as quickly as possible and ushered me forward with a nervous, "Sorry about that, what a little budger!"

'Budger!' 

Now there's a word I haven't heard since high school, standing in line for seconds on "Ham Patty on a Bun Day." 

Does anyone else miss hot lunch?!

   

In the Parking Lot of Barnes and Noble

I suppose the nice thing is that it’s all easier when you’re upset.  Disappointment—when things do not go as hoped, planned, dreamed—disappointment just puts words on pages.  What do you think?  Is it easier because there’s nothing left to let you down?  Or maybe life suddenly doesn’t seem so glamorous or captivating because you’ve lost that little inkling of hope that sparkled in the morning or flitted around throughout the most promising parts of the day.  Whatever the case, it’s nice to know—that is, to understand—that things just come out better when you’re feeling low.

Maybe that’s just my own (basket) case?

Do you suppose that’s why so many prominent authors, writers, musicians off’d themselves? Is that why beauty is suicidal?

Perhaps our greatest work, our most meaningful contributions only come out of the most disparaging moments of our existence.  That’s sort of awful isn’t it?  That the greatest way we’ll ever feel, or feat we’ll accomplish can only occur when even our fondest moments are eclipsed by circumstance.

So, a story:

I think she’s named Molly.  Her friend, the fat one with the white sweatshirt and black and pink sneakers, yes the one with the pretzel and the diet Pepsi, yes the fatty-fat girl called her Molly.  And Molly has on that new pink hoodie from Victoria’s Secret. The little dog, the bubbly font, the questionable length for a fourteen year-old girl.  Yes, there’s no question that it’s new.

Molly, she saunters when she steps, but you know that.  She moves like her feet have never been so heavy, like the blended caramel and coffee and whip and chocolate drink in her hand and that grass-green straw fixed at her lips could not strain her more than they already do. And the way she trips with every step, one foot stumbling after the other again and again and again.

She looks like a barnyard.

Look at them both: country girls from asomebackwoods farmstead.  Pink Molly and her fatty friend.

Molly and fat franny—like you care what her name is—they’re leaving the mall armed with cell phones and sugar and calories and bulging bags of clothing sized 2 and 4.  And at least 24.  Well maybe not quite 24, but like you give a shit beyond: she’s fat.

And when they step off the curb, yellow lines striping the asphalt under their shuffling feet, a car goes honk and boys in hats and shirts with giant numbers and impossible last names start laughing like they’ve just heard the funniest joke in the world. And fat franny chokes and spits out her pepsi—diet pepsi—and those boys nearly pass out.  And there are syrupy stains on those yellow stripes and running all the way down that white sweatshirt and you have to laugh too because, I mean, she looks like a layered desert, like a Little Debbie.  Like a goddamn Zebra Cake.

But Molly, sweet-blonde-in-her-new-sweatshirt-and-oh-so-skinny-jeans, Molly is saying: oh, honey, let’s clean you up.  Let’s get you out of here.

And that only makes it worse, of course, because whenever someone is nice or friendly to fat franny she just loses it.  She’s crying and there is blush and mascara—god it looks cheap—all up and down her once clean, white sweatshirt. Oh—and you’d laugh now—those black and red and pink little drops running off her face. You know they look like sprinkles, like fatty flabby franny is some costume from Halloween Express.  Ha! She’s a cupcake.  A fat franny cupcake.  And she knows how it must look, how she’s just a desert with legs, a snack on sticks. 

Well, on trunks, really.

But good ol’ Molly.  Happy little, rich little Molly is pushing her into the car.  Like: get in, you’re fine, we’re fine, it’s okay, you’ll get a new one, a better one, a more—and she can’t help but sneak this in—a more flattering one.

And you know you’re thinking: could anything be flattering?

But Molly knows best.

So when fatty, fatty franny is sopping wet and so many colors, Molly touches her arm and there is just one big sniffle and a little more than a pause.  And when there is finally breathing, Fatty McHuge friend says: I wish I were dead.

And Molly, oh-she’s-so-sweet-and-so-positive, Molly looks at fatty franny’s flabby face and her shining jowls and pushes stringy, curly locks of hair behind those flapping ears and studies the palette of colors on her friend’s face. With that shaking voice and with one big slurp from an oversized straw, Molly, nice-and-sugary, Molly stares out the windshield and says: You know what I think? I think this makeup is some of your best work.

And she says: No, really, look at you.

Fatty franny—and don’t kid yourself into thinking that her whole face will fit in that little visor-laid mirror—fatty franny looks up and moves back and forth in the tiny glass until she’s seen it all. And it’s impressive. It’s a canvass, a new avant-garde runway trend.  A Degas, a Monet, a Dalí, a Picasso. Even fatty franny, even bulging, squeezing, overflowing franny, yes even she knows she’s somehow created something impossible.

When Molly, little Molly with her slender wrists and full-bodied hair, when Molly says: See?, not even the tears or the laughing or the sweatshirt can keep her from smiling. With a grin as big as her own planetary frame, franny is radiant at her worst point.

Molly, going-nowhere-fast, Molly says: So you won’t do it?  Molly says: You’re stronger than that.

And fatty franny, she still hears honking cars and howling boys and has never been more certain of anything in her life. Franny, still salty with tears and shake-shake-shaking, franny can already count her mourners on her pudgy painted fingers.  

Franny, flabby at best and more upset than ever, franny says:

I’ve never been more beautiful. 

Ten Favorite Books of 2011

In the fall and early winter of 2010, I went through nearly twenty books in the short span of four months.  I understand that for many readers, this is common, almost normal.  A book a week?  Sure, easy.  And I wouldn’t bother mentioning this except I was also studying abroad, gallivanting around the UK, and consuming a copious amount of tube wine three to four nights a week.  I mean, I was busy.  Still, if there’s a pastime that I have time for, it’s reading. 

So it occurred to me, recently, while I was crying myself into a box of Kleenex—Finding Neverland; it gets me every time—that I should start blogging again.  And how better to get back into the swing of things, then to combine two of my favorite activities into one!  Reading and writing go together like a number of clichéd pairings, but that I could blog and also include books?  How.  Nice. 

Now I have blogged about books before, and writing about them is certainly not something I am unfamiliar with.  C’mon!  I spent half of my college life in ConVic—the English Department building on campus—and most of that time was spent hashing anthologies or novels or scripts until the texts actually bled onto tables and chairs.  Well, probably not bled, but I’m pretty sure that some of those pages lost letters and words.

Right, where was I going with this…oh, I’m blogging again!  And the let’s-try-this-again post is all about my favorite reads this year.  

Oofta.  A year.  

Clearly I won’t bore you with the details of every little thing I read this year, but I would certainly like to highlight ten or so that I very much enjoyed, will likely read again, and suggest you add to your own to-read list.

(Obviously it’s a countdown-style list.  Sure, it’s been a while since I’ve blogged about anything, but I’m still me; I’m still obsessed with ranking everything and everyone.)

(And while I’m talking about rankings: HOW THE HELL DID LISA WIN ANTM ALL STARS?  God.)

A few titles for you to check out that nearly made this oh-so-exclusive list of ten:

My Most Excellent Year, Steven Kluger

Damned, Chuck Palahniuk

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz

Life of Pi, Yann Martel

Bossypants, Tina Fey 

I won’t go into much detail about these five titles, but I will quickly say that they weren’t far from cracking the elusive bracket of ten.  Foremost, Damned and Life of Pi would probably be on the list if not for two other titles by their respective authors also being up-the-top.  I was so happy to have finally read Martel’s modern classic and discover Palahniuk’s genius for the first time.  Life of Pi is perhaps the most perfect book—stylistically, plot, tone, etc—I’ve read.  It’s a thinker, to say the least, and is captivating to the very end.  Fey is just hilarious and Díaz’s Pulitzer winning novel has already been discussed by every reader alive. 

 

That leaves Kluger’s work. 

My Most Excellent Year was given to me just before my return flight from London by most excellent friend, Jenny Katz.  I’m not including it in the top ten because I technically read it last year.  Still, I don’t think I’ve highlighted it on here before, and it more than deserves mention.  As far as teen-reads go, this one is superb.  It’s just so damn current and accepting.  I would love to see middle schools everywhere posit this book as mandatory reading. 

 And with that, and not much more, I give you the 10 best books I read this year!

10. The Gargoyle, Andrew Davidson

 

(You will quickly notice that many of the books on this list have been available for quite some time.  Cut me some slack!  The important this is that I’ve found them…even though most of you are probably thinking: “catch up, loser.”)

Like the figurines the title of Davidson’s novel harkens to, the prose of The Gargoyle is positively haunting.  I felt so chilled throughout reading this novel.  Davidson’s somewhat strange pacing and circular prose is never frustrating, but manages to snare the reader in a hold that lasts hours at a time.  Never have I been so appalled with and sympathetic toward a protagonist.

9. Little Bee, Chris Cleave

The first novel I remember reading with alternating POV is My Sister’s Keeper.  Maybe I’m missing a few, but Piccoult’s book is the first that springs to mind.  Well, was.  Now, I only think of Little Bee when I think about this style.  I was so taken by Cleave’s ability to alternate between Sarah and Little Bee, the novel’s two leading ladies, and how seamless he develops both.  If you were not a fan of Incendiary, like myself (snooze), I urge you to reconsider with Cleave’s latest. It’s a triumph.

Big thanks to Drew-siph Tharp

 

8. The Magician King, Lev Grossman

If you have not started this series—just two books short for now—I think you’d best head to your local bookseller.  On the back cover of The Magician King, someone equates this series to be Harry Potter with a shot of whiskey.  If you prefer a darker, sexier, more dangerous Narnia: pick this up.  Fillory begs you to tag along.

Bonus Quote: “Magic: it was what happened when the mind met the world, and the mind won for a change.”

7. The Book of Lost Things, John Connolly

Maybe I identified with David, maybe the “Crooked Man” is the most horrendous villain I’ve come across, maybe I cried my eyes out and was too emotionally invested in the story.  Whatever the case, holy crow’s feet did this book slap me across the face.  I believe it’s marketed to the young-reader, but I think Connolly’s work emotionally resonates just as well with adults.  Loss has never felt so compelling.

6. The Family Fang, Kevin Wilson 

This is the most recently released of the bunch.  I am not sure if Wilson has written other novels, but he is definitely an author I will be looking out for.  What struck me most about The Family Fang is how interested I was in the novel’s characters.  I positively adored Buster and Annie, even when I found the latter to be bratty and unfair.  Their relationships progression as siblings is so spot on.  I would not wait for paperback on this one.

5. The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern

 

I don’t think many will agree with this one.  I suppose folks will find it predictable and forgettable and pedestrian.  I prefer: magical.  I don’t have a soft-spot for circuses, but the world that Morgenstern develops is so utterly charming that I cannot imagine disliking a single detail of what is created on the page.  I found The Night Circus to be playful and engaging.  Sappy, right?

Bonus Quote:  “The most difficult thing to read is time.  Maybe because it changes so many things.”

4. Beatrice and Virgil, Yann Martel

Though not as glorified as The Life of Pi, this book is worth every minute you spend with it.  And, given its length, you’ll probably be begging for more of it.  I probably found Beatrice and Virgil more special because it was also the first book I shared with a certain little man.  But beyond my sentimentality, the novel is a heartbreaking look at loneliness and the impending disaster of a bottled-up life.  Also, how quote-worthy! 

“Those who carry a knife and a pear are never afraid of the dark.”

Here’s one I force myself to remember every so often: “If you are pitched into misery, remember that your days on this earth are counted and you might as well make the best of those you have left.”

3. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk

So this was my first trip with Palahniuk. Comparable to no vacation I’ve ever been on, I imagine this would be the one trip to Mexico or Vegas that I’m probably glad to not remember.  Invisible Monsters stars a disfigured model and the women and men rebuilding her on a drug-riddled journey to rebirth.  I cannot tell you how happy I am to have this author in my life: cannot wait to backtrack through the rest of his work.

 

2. Skippy Dies, Paul Murray

Now, I think I have touched on this novel before, but I don’t want to sell it short.  Heads and tails above any coming-of-age tale of today, Skippy Dies is that perfect story of a not-so-perfect time.  I won’t belittle this novel by writing paragraphs of praise; it’s one of those works that just stands so well on its own.  Seriously: read this.

1. Mathilda Savitch, Victor Lodato

It’s no coincidence that the one novel that rocked my literary world this year is also the one I gave the most copies of this holiday season.  I fell in love with this girl, this poor little thing, and have not be released from her voice since this summer.  Every time I’m looking for something new, I search for Lodato.  Like Sherman Alexie, this man has me hooked, line and sinker.  I have heard people criticize this book because the main character doesn’t change, there’s no progression.  To those critics, I’d like to ask: how shallow is your understanding of an small child’s psyche?  Last time I checked, eleven-year-old children do not change overnight.  They experience, they learn, they forget, and they repeat. 

Mathilda is no exception.

Never have I been so enthralled with a child’s life: I cannot stress enough how highly I would recommend you pick this up right this second.

“Sometimes you can just say things and it’s like a bomb that blows all your clothes off and suddenly there you are naked. I don't know if it’s disgusting or beautiful.”

“Time is funny lately, nothing to do with clocks.” 

Thoughts?  Suggestions?  To Reads?  I can’t wait to hear them!

For now, I bid my little blog adieu with one little confession:

I’ve missed you. 

Fish in the Sea

I used to sleep with four stuffed fish.  Each of them had different colors, a different shape to their fins, and eyes that shined like gems even in the twilight of bedtime.

They were all from Sarasota, Florida, but I like to think they were all from some tropical locale like Australia or New Zealand or Costa Rica. Or maybe they were from somewhere in the Caribbean or just visiting from the Bahamas.  Wherever they were from, they were stunning examples of the beautiful pupils in the deep, dark oceans.  Not only were they strikingly detailed, but as a crafted toy—for lack of better word—they were remarkable.

It’s distressing now that I can’t remember a single one of their names.  I can see them on my sheets, scattered across my floor, and even resting on the sill of my wide basement window.  I can see them in my loft, playing in fleece blankets and conversing with bubbles and still, quiet communication.

But I can’t remember their names.

I feel like I’ve lived some bizarre one-night-stand with my stuffed animals.  Wham, bam, thank you ma’am—err, fish—and out the door of my memory bank.  Of course, back when I had the fish, a one-night-stand was not a concept I was familiar with, nor one that crossed my mind when I would cuddle up next to them beneath a giant comforter or amidst a nest of pillows.

Still, it’s oddly painful and slightly disconcerting that, regardless of the years we spent together, I cannot remember their names.

One was light yellow with blue eyes and a tail that was flimsy and sinewy like a strand of fiber optic lights.  She was the pretty one, I remember that.  She had a fin on her back like a row of lilacs growing out of her spine, and if you wanted to, you could smell them and make believe that everything was calm, was comforting, that everything around you was okay. 

She was like a good friend or nice bath in that way.   

There was another, like a clown fish.  Orange and white bands that moved like waves across his tummy and over his tail.  He was small, but I know he was feisty.  If you asked me then, I would have told you that he had a sailor’s mouth and a bad habit of smoking seaweed in the depths of deep ocean trenches.  Still, he was good natured—the fish you loved because it was the right thing to do and you couldn’t help but do so.  His tail was stitched up, and my dad would tell me how he barely escaped the jaws of that terrible shark.

But I was smarter than that; our golden retriever could barely keep her head above water, let alone swim with all the aggression and speed of a the sea’s greatest predator.

The red one was small.  A green iris and blazing, burning body.  He was like Christmas without the family tension.  But small, yes, he was the littlest of them all and he slipped around those silky sheets like a minnow wriggling out of your hands.  He was the youngest, of course, the one that pretty fish and smoking fish put up with because they had to.  I suppose they pitied him too, what with the missing fin.

He was smart.  He was quick and cunning and witty and could make you laugh like no one else at home or at school ever could.  But shy, yes, so very shy and quiet.  The introvert, the hidden and the hiding.

The last of the four was the first of the bunch.  Of course, he was my favorite, and I don’t think I could have asked for more beautiful bed-mate. 

He was blue, bluer than the water he adventured in, bluer than any reef he swam over, bluer than the sky he peeked up at when taking a quick breath above the surface.  His scales shimmered like rain on a pavement when the light baked his sides.  His eyes were orange, orange like the thin pipes of burnt ochre that curved around his fins and ran from his face to his tail. 

He was fire.  He kept me warm at night.

And it’s funny, yes, the way a fish can keep you warm, when they’re the ones who sleep in the cold oceans and beneath the waxing and waning and crashing tide.  How a creature that comes from water, comes from anti-fire, is capable of enveloping you in a sense of soothing heat.

I suppose that heat is not really physical warmth, but rather the connection that imbues a sense of love and presence into the space between your hugs. 

Presence.  Hmm. 

It’s unfortunate to use a word like that when even his name escapes me. 

I remember the little girl that picked that fish out of the Garage Sale bin.

I remember the way her blond hair was disheveled and dirty and matted.  I remember the white t-shirt that wasn’t actually white anymore, but still partially maintained the face of Barbie and a small speech bubble that said “Too Cool for You!  Barbie!” with a little heart that could have been pink or purple or brown, depending on the way the sun hit the iron-on design.

Her face is dirty too.  Of course it is. 

But her hands are spotless, and almost seem to glow white hot in the sun of an early Saturday morning.

She is standing next to her brother, who is much younger and cares much less about the garage sale and more about the bugs that litter our driveway, crawling in and out of leaves and acorns and twigs.

I don’t think I thought much of her at first, but I know I couldn’t take my eyes off of her when I saw her pick the blue-orange fish from the animal bin and hug it close to that filthy t-shirt.

“She’s so pretty!” the little girl yells. “She’s so pretty and she’s going to be so happy.”

I whisper to no one that she is a he.

“She’s going to be so happy.”

As they weave through tables of knick-knacks and clothing we’ve all outgrown, they make their way to the register—a tackle box that looks all kinds of official—and hand me a quarter.

Twenty-five cents.

The face of Thomas Jefferson is stoic and I know that I do not smile as the little girl holds him out before me, my fish in her other hand.

“Thanks!”

I nod.

“She’s going to be mine and we’re going to be so happy.”

“He might not like you calling him she or her,” I say. 

“She. Her. She. Her.  She’s mine now.”

My neck is hot and all I want to do is throw her quarter on the ground and tell her that he’s not for sale, that I’ve changed my mind, that I guess I haven’t grown up after all.

She walks away with her new fish and I stand there with tears in my eyes because he should still be mine.  He should still be there in the middle of my blankets, floating among the waves of pillows and the wake of a tossing and turning boy who’s too grown up to sleep with toys.

Thinking back, I guess she just needed him more, that the fish had so much more purpose for her than he had left for me.

I think, that maybe I was just in love with that fish because that’s what I knew at that time, what felt comfortable, what felt right.

But that thought will never extinguish the burning desire to just have him back, of that I am sure.

I just miss him, you know? 

I just want things to go back to that moment when he is swimming up the currents of sheets and blankets and duvets and throw pillows and warm, fuzzy feelings.

I just want to be happy with that goddamned fish and I don’t want anyone else to have him because we are so happy together even when I’m too old to play with stuffed animals, to talk to my toys.

I just want things to be like they were and I wonder if there’s anything wrong with that?

I wonder and I shout and I cry because I just want someone to answer me when I ask: Why? Why? WHY?

But in my mind, in that memory of that little girl walking to her car and throwing her new friend into the air and holding her close, my Mom comes out from the garage and yells toward her and her mother and her brother.  And the little girl looks back and says “me?”

And mom says: “Don’t you have a name for her?”

Little Dirty Girl looks down and thinks out loud: “ummmmmm”

“Maybe you can call her Coral?” and the little girl is giddy with glee. 

Mom looks back at me and she winks.  “There.  Now, whenever you need to know that things are okay, you’ll have the knowledge that your fish, your Coral, is somewhere safe, being loved, and he will think of you every his name is used.”

I wonder now if I’ll ever see that fish again, if he’ll somehow find his back through the streams and rivers and channels and back into my little, tiny land where fish can talk and you don’t have to grow up.  Mostly, I just want.  Mostly, I just think we’d be happier than that damn disheveled girl and her dirty face.

Mostly, I think of me and my Coral.

Coral.

Coral.

His name was Coral.

Nature vs. Josh

It’s not every day that you pee yourself out of fear and then openly admit it to the World Wide Web.  Today, however, is not every day.  Today is a day in which I sit before you, shivering to the bone out of terror, and readily type: I WET MYSELF TWO DAYS AGO.

Luckily, I was in the shower. 

Perhaps you’ve noticed through my tweets or constant barrage of Facebook statuses that nature and I have not been on the best of terms lately.  It’s a silly little argument, really.  Right now, we just to see eye to eye, and, because Mother Earth and her inhabitants do not care to come in second in our daily race to the finish, I’ve been the victim of several animal related incidents in the past few weeks. 

I won’t lie, folks.  She’s taken her toll on me with these every day struggles.  I guess I have no choice but to write through these pains. Fortunately for you, I am a natural born storyteller and have the ever wonderful gift of tale, voice, and intrigue. 

Oh, and a massive, faux ego that I use to pump myself up but then immediately back down from because I fear it makes me sound pretentious, arrogant, and unappealing. 

And Josh Plattner is none of the above. 

They say aversion therapy works for smokers and drinkers.  You become exposed to excessive amounts of your problem and then, suddenly, you’re no longer addicted/afraid/abusive.  Well, I don’t have massive amounts of nature’s finest creatures with which to fill a bathtub and then roll around in.  But: I do have a laptop, Microsoft Word, and some frightening memories that make funny/sad/relatable stories.

Here’s to catharsis!

Close to Argus

One of my favorite episodes of 30 Rock—and how can you even pick!—is about the last will and testament of Don Geiss.  In his will, he left Jack his proud and ever-strutting Peacock, Argus.  It’s a magnificent bird, though somewhat terrifying in speed, and is referred to as a “living dinosaur” by Liz Lemon.  In the episode, Argus marks Liz as his wife by placing his wing feathers in her mouth: “WHY ARE THEY SO OILY?!”

I laugh every single time it happens because the thought of a bird’s feathers slapping someone across the face and then permeating their taste buds is hilarious!  Seriously, that’s funny!

Well, it used to be funny.

It was a beautiful Thursday morning.  I can’t tell you if the sky was blue and the sun was shining, but I remember it was stunning because I was already hopped up on copious amounts of caffeine and downing my second coffee beverage of the day on my walk up Old Main hill.

Lady Gaga was blasting into my ears (“I’m on the right track…!”) and everything was coming up Josh.  I might have even broken out into song on my little walk up the hill! 

I was minding my business, whistling along with my iPod—named Grapes—when I came across a robin in a tree that was also whistling.  I was touched; I was really connecting with nature.  The connection turned literal, however, just a minute or so later.

So here I am sitting with my iPod in my hands and watching with this little robin bop it’s little head back in forth like it’s listening along.  And then Gaga sings: “Black, white, beige…” and I say (out loud like a lunatic talking to himself) “hey, Robin!  You’re sorta beige!  And you know what?  You were born that wa—” Well, I didn’t quite make it to the ‘y.’  You see, as I turned away from the robin on “way,” another robin flew directly into the right side of my face, knocking off the novelty glasses I unnecessarily wear on a regular basis.

Ironically, the gross and, YES, oily feathers of the robin that had just made my face his crash pad slipped across my lips and even managed to flutter gently across my tongue, leaving the faint taste of after-shave and dead lady bug on my teeth.  Yes, it was left on my teeth.  I could taste the robin’s oily ickyness all over my bicuspids and canines. 

I no longer laugh at Liz Lemon’s peacock panic. 

I just empathize.

Wait, They Nest?

The answer to that question is yes.  They do.

It’s the same day and I’m still jumpy because I am more than certain that every robin on the ground, busily pecking at earthworms or, hopefully, centipedes is about to rise from the dir or grass or cement and sky attack my face.  Paranoia had set in. 

But I am off with my geology lab for a “field trip.”

I want to be very clear that field trip in this sense is nowhere near as exciting as it was in elementary, middle, or even high school.  In fact, field trips might even be worse than regular class periods these days!  You see, field trip in the geological sense means: we’re going to look at rock outcrops in the St Peter area and then talk about why this rock is there and why that rock goes there and how they arrived in this beautiful city.

Honestly, leaving campus is somewhat pleasurable, even if it is just to look at boring ol’ rocks.  It’s unfortunate that Laura Triplett doesn’t teach something more exciting; she’s a great professor. 

Anyway, we’re bussing all over the place, taking peaks at river deposits, at some quaternary till, and even some erratic boulders deposited by glaciers!  WOOT!  Soon, we arrive at a sign on 169 that says, NO TRESPESSING, and I read: You will be shot for stepping foot on my property.  Seriously though, you don’t know what people will do.  Ever since watching that episode of South Park where the farmer just up and shoots anyone on his property without a second thought, I can’t help but think: these could be my last steps.

I guess I don’t trespass very often so those thoughts are sort of irrelevant.  Whaeva!!!

So I step passed the sign and I remain alive.  Yay!  And I’m walking forward listening (sort of) to Laura telling us to grab rock specimens and present them to the rest of our group.  So we scatter.  As we do so, I get excited because there’s a river right next to me and GOD KNOWS I love little outdoor activities and enjoy getting dirty in nature.  So I scamper off toward the stream bank to get a closer look at the sandstone—rockdropping, no big deal.

I take three steps or so and I hear someone say, “snake!”

I turn, and sure enough, slithering behind me, a good distance away, is a garter snake trying to climb an embankment of a sloping rock mass.  I laugh because snakes are stupid.  Sure it’s nervous laughter cuz lord knows if it comes near me I’m gonna kill it or kick it into the nearby culvert.

Off to the river!  I turn and take a few more steps and then think about how odd it is that the earth beneath my feet, not-so-safely confined in the care of flip-flops, is softer than the rest of the packed dirt around me.  I think it must just be part of the river, but look down just in case.

I am standing in—not on, in—a writhing, wiggling mass of garter snakes.  There’s probably eight to ten, and three of them rocket into the air when my foot comes reeling out of their scaly, squiggly nest.

I stepped in a snake nest.  A snake nest.

A. Snake. Nest.

The worst part is how dry they felt as they skittered between my toes.  Not quite a dry rag, and not quite a pumice stone.  It was like taking a dry loofa and dragging it through the spaces between your toes. 

Oh, and if you’re trying it for yourself, don’t forget to cut a little fiber of the loofa so that it sticks out slightly.  Pretend it’s a tongue. Pretend it’s a snake tongue licking your foot and that there’s nothing you can do but make a whimpering noise and flee to the river.

How to Lose a Toenail

I spend a lot of time in the courtyard café.  Usually it’s late night work that just didn’t find a way to get done over the course of the day, or was intentionally put off out of laziness or boredom or any other excuse I could make up. 

So it follows that I spend a good amount of time outdoors, at night, walking home in the dark.  I don’t mind it; in fact, I almost prefer it.

Of course, if you know me well, you’re aware that I love me some flip-flops.  Flip-flops, while more comfortable, freeing, and wearable than normal shoes, are not always the smartest choice of footwear.  This is especially true at night, in the dark, when it’s raining, and when it’s cold. 

Two nights ago, all four of these conditions were not only present, but I was also hopped up and caffeine and thought that it would be a fine idea to skip gleefully home in the rain.

Turns out there are creatures that appear more readily in the rainy nights than in otherwise pleasant weather conditions.

Any guesses?

Allie Schulte could tell you: WORMS.

Yep, they are frequently seen on campus on rainy nights, rolling around on the sidewalks, inching along and minding their own business.  Unfortunately, they aren’t so easily seen in the nighttime, especially when the sidewalks are not that well lit.

So here I am, walking along the sidewalk, just trying to get home in the rain.  As I am walking—skipping, you caught me—I step on a giant mass of worms and slide on their slippery skin for a couple feet and then grind my big toe into the cement because of my flip-flop preference. I look down and notice that I can’t tell the difference between my blood and the blood of the worms that are now pulped against the sidewalk.

I apologize and curse.  Seen on the sidewalk: bloodied, broken worms and a segment of my toenail. 

Awesome.

Shower Sneak-Attack

The shower is supposed to be a safe place.  It’s supposed to be a calming, relaxing time of day when the outside world just lingers on the outskirts of the curtain or the door. 

Alas, this cannot always be the case.

I am rinsing the soap off of my face when it happens.  I feel water splashing on my feet—as I should, I’m in the shower!  I notice that the water feels like it’s lingering though, like it’s somehow sticking to my right foot.  So, naturally I look down.

HOLYSHITHOLYSHITHOLYSHITCENTIPEDECENTIPEDECENTIPEDEHOLYSHIT

And so I pee—sorry, Kirsten, I promise I cleansed the shower thoroughly—because I am scared to the point of urinary release. 

You guys, I don’t like the word I’m about to use, as most of you can attest, but: I HATE centipedes.  I hate them.  Not only do I despise their existence, but they are actually the single most terrifying creature I have EVER, EVER come into contact with. 

Ugh.  Yuck. Ish.

Not only do I pee, I fall over in our tiny-ass shower which only provokes the little bastard further. 

Side note: HOW THE HELL IS THE CENTIPEDE ABLE TO MOVE IN THE WATER?  Shouldn’t they be washed away?  Shouldn’t the water pressure knock him into the drain? 

Oh, wait, Centipedes use black magic (obviously) and are evil and that’s how they can stay functional even in a shower drain. 

So when I fall over, the centipede rears back on his haunches and spreads each of his other three million legs apart in a mortifying display of aggression.  I can almost hear him hissing like an angry cat as here rears back, ready to pounce.  I scramble to my feet and he scurries into the corner.

Is that water on my face from the shower, or is it a profuse amount of tears?  Not sure.

I take my conditioner bottle off of the rack and DUMP a whole bunch of it on to the leg-ridden, hell-born monster that I am pretty sure has quadrupled in size since his arrival. 

The conditioner carries him back the drain and I hear him shout: “I’ll be back!” as every single one of his flailing legs disappears back into the abyss.

SICK.

Nature – 4    Josh – 0.