The Sun and the Stellar Structure

Another day and the Earth has spun once again,
twenty-four ticks on a calendar of tocks.
Another day and the Moon circles her shark,
delivering shade to the night and shape to the tide.
Another day and the Sun warms the fleas who think
She exists to warm them. She would if they didn't.
The Sun does not have days. She does not have time.
She has a soul of boiling hydrogen. She spins and flings.
We are slaves to a sliver of her waste.
She is an open eye and she has one blink in her.
The stars on the rim smile their extinguished flame.
Twinkle, we say, we fawn, and we wish upon them.
This is the fodder of sleeping bag gazers, of child philosophers,
It is the poetry of crayons, immortalized on construction paper
with glue and glitter and the innocent smiles of missing teeth.
They write not of hatred or forgiveness, nor the cruelties of curiosity
nor the love and the passion of unrequited dreams,
nor the kink and the lust of reptilian urges,
nor the emptiness of loves lost or the pallid squalor of love never found,
nor of back pain or disease or of fantastic orgasms or of evolutionary conquest
or of those pathetic roadside shrines to the teenaged victims of physics,
or of a hand held tight under a surgeons knife, or of proud applause,
or of whispered dreams and urgent nightmares,
or of people pressing bodies during moments of laughter and moments of tears.
They do not know they are gifted with giggling and crying.
They do not marvel at the sheer absurdness of it all.
They write of parents and stars and brothers
and the moon and sisters and the Sun. And pets.
The sad among them write of fear and confusion.
The saddest among them cannot hold a crayon.
So spins the Earth. So goes the time.
Each day a drama dies, a life is born.
On warm breezy days the gravity-bound feel the air that teases their forearms.
The rest of us; we are the wind.

The Magnificient Smile

Click here (links to the BBC)

It's a test of your ability to tell the difference between a genuine smile and a fake smile. It's straightforward and simple. No personal information required. You watch 20 different people form a smile and then you decide if you think the smile is genuine or fake. It's kinda fun.

Bragging moment: I got 19 out of 20. I gots da people skills.

The Space Race

In space penguins shall be known as spaceguins.

They will be even more cute in zero g than they are here. They will wear adorable penguin space helmets, so that they may breathe and communicate with each other. They will fly in delightful groups hunting space krill-- sprill.

Those meteor showers we all enjoy? Those are schools of dying spaceguins.

Elephants should not be forced to live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Nor in Chicago, Illinois.

I've killed two geese in my lifetime. Both were satisfying kills. I hated it.

I am one of the best parallel parkers in the city.

There is a giant disco on the opposite side of the moon. It is named, "The Moonwalk." It has large blue-green neon signs and is open 28 days out of the year. It serves amazing margaritas and kick ass chili. During lunar eclipses the drinks are half off and the Moon women are just a little bit easier to talk to. During the 60s, back when mankind made modest attempts at unwrapping its potential, the Moon people who hide in the dark were nervous. But now they know better.

An office lady once told me the walls were the color sea-foam green. I thought, "What an absurd name for a color?" I thought the walls were Robin's egg blue. I told her so. Her co-worker agreed.

Is there a shade of yellow called urine-foam yellow? Do women know urine makes foam in the toilet? My guess is most do not.

*sigh*

Elvis is buried next to his stillborn twin brother, Aaron. Both of their graves are marked by six foot long metal covers, engraved with their names and years of existence. Elvis had three TVs in one room and a pool table room with no windows but drapes on the walls and ceiling. I watched a man cut his head open on the exit to Elvis's shooting range. The doorway was low. The man was tall. Because of him, I ducked.

I am one of those learning monkeys. I touched a toaster once, just once.

I am also amazing at wedding dancing.

When I was a child my brothers and I saw a product called "Disappearing Ink." We thought we could cover ourselves in it and rob banks or scare teachers. Disappearing Ink taught us never to trust advertising again.

There will someday be a movie about a murderous barber entitled, "Shear Madness." There will be a film about a runaway train entitled, "Rail Biter." It will be horrible.

Wouldn't it be safer for school buses to accelerate over railroad tracks? It seems there is greater chance of mechanical failure during the gear shifting process of stopping and starting. Why don't they have seat belts on school buses? Is the cargo not valuable enough to strap down? Why do my friends make fun of me for putting my seatbelt on in taxis? They are morons, yet I forgive them. And I will visit them in the hospital when their turn comes.

I will wipe their drool and laugh and laugh.

Why don't people ride zebras?

Did cavemen name their hurricanes?

Does all the hurt mean something or is it just there so that we may enjoy simple things like Spaceguins and debates over wall color?

Here's the best poem I've ever written:

I wish I were a bird in the shade,
Because then I would be envied.

I am sad of being tired.

That New Blanket Smell

I've been breaking in a new blanket lately, one I acquired while shopping for toys for little girls. I found the blanket in the blanket section, not the toys for little girls section. This was right before Christmas. Rather than actually accomplish my task, which was to buy toys for little girls-- gifts for my nieces, I found myself upon a more feminine pursuit: I was looking for a new set of sheets, as it was time to change the sheets on my bed and I was too busy (read: lazy) to do laundry. Well, one thing led to another and now I’m writing a post about my new favorite blanket. It’s actually a quilt. I think.

Here’s something about myself I’m okay with: I love blankets. I do. They’re great. I love ‘em. I love large blankets, small blankets – even medium-sized blankets. I love all types: quilts, bedspreads, comforters, throws, sheets (they’re a type of blanket, right?) There are probably other words for “fabric used to trap body heat while resting” that I haven’t yet learned. Oh! Sleeping bags! That’s a really specialized kind of blanket. I have a down comforter that I don’t use, although I have two different duvets for it. It’s made for a twin bed but it’s the perfect size for a queen, because it fits perfectly well on the top of the mattress, without draping over the sides, thereby preventing gravity from pulling the down down along the edges in thermally inefficient lumps.

My new blanket still has that new quilt feel. Stiff, a little uncooperative, slightly annoying -- like morning wood. But with continued use and frequent washing, which will likely be infrequent, its fibers will stretch, its seams will ease, its threads will relax. It will become soft and soothing and might even earn a permanent place upon my bed, except on summer nights when a single sheet is all this Peacock needs to nest up for the night.

I'm not sure where this peculiar taste of mine comes from. For those wondering, no, I wasn't that fucked up little kid who couldn't sleep unless he had his ratty, tattered Big Bird blankie tucked tensely against his chest. My childhood was fucked up for different reasons, but not something ridiculous like that.

I guess I’m just one of those guys that likes a good blanket.