Writing, Poems, Whatever, But I'm Wearing a GUMBY SHIRT

I think everyone who knows me can agree that I have curated a lifetime's worth of pretty kick-ass t-shirts. It's a skill, a worthless skill, but one that occasionally pays off when I find a thirteen-year-old video of me reading poem in a Gumby milk mustache shirt. That's the kind of thing people need to see.

Oh, and there's a poem, kind of meta-, back before that was cool. Or maybe it was after that was cool. Enjoy.

You Gotta Like That

Here’s a poem you’ll like.

This poem is like a poem that tastes good.

This poem is like a poem that feels nice.

This poem is like a poem that sounds like

a truck full of rock and rollers

crashed into a truck full of

sassy sweet singing finches

 crashed into a small compact car

full of crazy techno beats.

This poem is a lot

like a poem that looks

like a poem that smells like

buttered popcorn flavored butter popcorn.

How do you like that?

You like that?

You gotta like that.

This poem has capful of whimsy

a handful of frippery

a mouthful flummery

a hatful of flippancy

a dump truck full virility

and a tomfoolery-sized dose of pleasantry.

How do you like that?

This poem, which I am about to read to you,

has a crazy amount of fanciful rhyming

describing an ark-full of wacky animal happenings.

the ants all dance in their ant dance pants,

and there’s a chance of glance of steamy ants’ romance.

the crows know where the ho's go,

and the ho’s beaus wear the plainclothes

but crows close when snow flows,

and those ho’s compose rows and rows of prose and pros

and cons that can ban the frying pan

whose plan began as a fan of the man.

You gotta like that.

I’m going to read you a poem,

that sounds the same backwards and forwards

that spells a perfect palindrome

that can be anagrammed into the Declaration of Independence

that can be diagrammed to look like the Golden Gate Bridge

its words are all homonyms and

its syllables are all homophones.

Turn up the bass, and it beats a flawless

bow, bow, bow, bow, bow, bow, bow, bow,

turn up the treble and it sings

like a thousand prepubescent American Idol castratos.

How do you like that?

You are about to hear a poem

in which I conduct spiritual surgery

You like that?

With a scalpel of truth

I will extract my soul,

How do like that?

I will hold my soul in front of you,

where you can watch it glow,

some of you may be moved to tears,

some may be moved to laughter,

others will move with the music,

and the rest will move to bathroom,

because this poem has been known

to make people have to pee.

You gotta like that.

But most importantly, people,

This poem is about you.

It’s about the things you like,

and people, believe me when I tell you,

you will like this poem,

you will wake up tomorrow morning and say

“Man, I would like to buy that poem on compact disc,”

the first time tomorrow you see a particularly beautiful woman,

you will say,

“Dude, I would like to have that poem tattooed on my ass,”

the first time tomorrow Mother Nature taps you on the shoulder

And blows kisses in your ear, you will say,

“Holy shit, I really liked that poem.”

How do you like that?

You gotta like that.

Acute Sports Deficiency Syndrome

Uh-oh. Snow's gone, sun's out. That means people are going to want to play sports with me. My kids, relatives, backyard football, charity runs, it is all starting again. But there's a problem.

This is another piece from back in the Volume One archives that, like a frog frozen in the mud, is finding new life amidst the rising temperatures. Don't pity me. I've learned to cope. Pity the other sports idiots who still struggle with these issues.

Please Don't Pass Me the Ball

I am dumb at sports. If our society determined overall intelligence using kinesthetic sense and, by extension, mechanical aptitude instead of language and mathematics, I would be living in a special home with several other sports-challenged gentlemen. A college student with a Social Work major would show up a few times a week to take us to a baseball field and watch as we flailed around and attempted to kick field goals with our Nerf frisbees. My housemates and I would get ice cream afterwards just for trying.

Standing around was the part of kickball I was best at

My golf game is an excellent indicator of my competition IQ. I took Parks and Rec golf lessons at twelve years old, and I did not even succeed in learning the names of the clubs. I listened intently to the instructor, often with my hand on my chin, squinting, trying my hardest to make it look like I had any idea what he was talking about.  Then I would walk up to the T-box, pull out my won wood, place my feet shoulder-width apart, bend my knees, swing, keep my eye on the ball, follow through, and hit that little sucker fifteen feet straight to my left, often breaking another kid’s nose.  1992 was a banner year for facial reconstructive surgery in the Chippewa Valley.

I still try to golf, and although there has been a tiny amount of improvement, I am still dumb at golf.  There is no way for me to translate what I understand I am supposed to do to actual body motion.  I just walk up to the ball, have a violent golf spasm, and hope it goes well.  My father-in-law joins me every few T-times, and he tries to help.  He is a retired middle school biology teacher, so he has a mountain of experience in helping mindless human beings learn new things, and preventing them from eating whatever is being dissected.  He watches my swing and makes very insightful comments on wrist-breaking and hip rotation, and then I walk up to the ball again and have approximately the same violent golf spasm, sending the ball to approximately the same spot, thirty yards to the right of fairway behind a large tree. There is always a tree.  My father-in-law usually offers some genuine yet somehow not reassuring comment about consistency.

 I am #44, the kid who looks like he's wearing eye makeup.

I have tried all the sports, and I am dumb at all of them. In youth league soccer, I would run after the ball, then fall, either out of exhaustion or because I tripped, and then become engrossed in the grass, often weaving several strands together into a sturdy grass rope. I produced impressive grass ropes in youth baseball, too, but not because I found myself on the ground. Right field was so boring, I just sat down. Middle school basketball was rough, probably because Ian and I went to Burger King and ate a mountain of french fries before each practice, then wondered why the sport was so difficult. In two years I scored only two points, because on the last game of the second season, our team was ahead by a ton, so everyone passed the ball to me until I made a basket, which, I believe, is also how Michael Jordan was able to achieve greatness. I played bar league volleyball for several years, and every success there came from finding the weak link on the opposing team and serving to him or her relentlessly, like a huge jerk. I got pretty good at pitching in an adult kickball league after several seasons. That pride was squashed under an attempt to slide into third one game. I sat on my foot and bent it in half, which was not bad enough to earn an actual sports injury. It just forced me to use crutches, and when everyone asked what happened, my response was “soft tissue injury,” which is sports code for “wuss.”

Washers: The Type of Sport I Can Handle

And now summer is coming, and my sporting disability is once again an issue, because everyone is dusting off their bocce ball mallets and trying to find enough people for a racquetball team. And now I have a son who loves sports. While I write this, he is shooting socks at a laundry basket. Some of them even go in, and he does not require seven other boys passing him the socks over and over until statistics dictate that he makes one. For him, I will keep trying my best.  If you see me on the golf course, cover your nose.  If we meet on the soccer pitch or the baseball field, I would be happy to weave you some grass. And no matter what the competition, prepare yourself. I have a pretty impressive sports spasm.

Shedding Season

So, spring is great, warmer weather, melting snow, yeah, yeah, everyone's thrilled. BUT, there is this phenomenon, especially in the northern USA, that can be disconcerting. It is one of those raw and explicit nature things. You know it happens, you just maybe don't want to see it. Everyone sheds their winter clothes to display their supple toes and legs and upper arms. In the case of white people, everything's also all pale and pasty. Gross.

I wrote this several years ago about the rare organism that erupts from this metamorphosis already in full splendor. After all the first-time flip flops I saw yesterday, this thought helps.

Footing

Black ice hates your tailbone and wants to hurt it

The only way to successfully walk on ice

is to have the confidence you will not fall.

I’ve seen it.

I’ve seen the double-takes

follow her in instinctual waves.

She catches every eye twice.

At least.

Cold March froze its own rain,

the sidewalks are treacherous,

but she is grace in polar fleece.

Sex in mittens.

Everyone else

sacrificed gender to scarves and ski jackets,

discarded male and female in the snow bank.

She found it all,

and although we may be warm in our down

her winter wear radiates heat that permeates

everyone’s Gore-tex shells.

I watch her step, step

confident of her footing

glance down, glance out

caring, but not looking like she cares

knowing she looks good, but not looking like

she knows she looks good.

I think of my morning.

Six minute shower, two minute toothpaste,

Thirty second hair gel,

her cheek alone must have taken an hour and a half

her calf would have needed at least two months

and I assume she spent about three years on that wrist.

I got up at 7:30.

She must have gotten up in 1992.

 High Heel Challenge Level 4 - Cobblestones

It shows, and she’s showing it to whoever cares to look

a runway model on a skating rink

and, you know,

with all the frocks and drapes

all the casings and coverings

it is the confidence

because I bet she looks best in pajamas.

A Digital Valentine's Card for My Wife

We met when I was fourteen and awkward. I barely remember what I was like back then, but I remember her – slim and energetic in 90’s grunge flannel and spacious jeans. The story has become our family’s lore, which our kids can recite just as well as I can recount the tale of my own parents’ meeting. We were assigned to a group in forensics where I played a dead body while she and a friend played mourners. She witnessed an ill-timed nose picking of mine, which is why she wanted out of the group.

Proximity turned my awkwardness endearing. Three years of high school, followed by four years of college, all on the same forensics team, stuck for hours upon hours in fifteen-passenger vans. It’s no wonder we built a connection, then kept reinforcing it. Our story is pretty much the opposite of the star-crossed lovers archetype. Our eyes didn’t meet with crackles of cosmic energy. She was the woman I knew best at the time I was interested in hooking arms with someone and putting together an adult life. But I like that better. It wasn’t on accident. Our life was intentional. We started growing together a long time ago. She knew about that embarrassing little nose-picking thing five years before we even started dating, and she still kept orbiting back to me in tighter and tighter circles until we formed our own little heavenly body, suspended in the sky with all the other cosmic forces.

So, this is Valentine’s Day number 20 since we met, 18 since we become friendly, 15 since we started dating, and 12 since we were married. And, man, I still think she’s great. She’s a skilled mom, a successful business owner, and she’s hot. She’s generous with the foot rubs, and she tells me I’m funny and talented, even when I have trouble believing it. Happy Valentine’s Day, sweetie. You’re the best.

Happy Valentine's Day!

At least there's no bugs! Right?

Beautiful winter from my driveway

It's -2 again here in Wisconsin, Boston has been snowed right off the map, and April is still really far away. But you know what? Literally nothing has bit me in months. How great is that?

Just in case you're having trouble seeing the snow cloud silver lining, here's something I wrote for Volume One a few years ago. The house I live in now does not feature these hellish demon bugs, but there's another timely connection in here - I discuss city ordinances pertinent to nature, and Eau Claire just allowed backyard beekeeping. Go nature!

Centipedes Attack!

Unfortunately, it seems I have arrived at the time in my life when I must get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.  It’s not so bad, really – I experience a small amount of voyeuristic glee in witnessing which of the neighbors’ lights are still on at 3 AM, and the innocent joy of returning to my warm comforter after a chilly trip downstairs is quite pleasant.  But then spring hit, and our bugs started to return.

We live in a charming little 1950’s home on the East Hill, and amongst the various crap lodes that the previous owner left for us, we inherited an infestation of a creature called scutigera coleoptrata, or house centipedes.  If you are not currently wincing in disgust because you are familiar with this gaggingly terrifying little nugget of natural wonder, please, please google “house centipede” right now.  See what I mean? 

Now imagine all those legs on the back of your neck

Now imagine it’s 3:17 AM, you are standing (or sitting) in the bathroom, and one of these little bastards comes tearing out from under the bath mat at about 70 miles per hour.  I normally dodge backwards, hitting the door and slamming it into the wall.  Next I clamor for a tissue or some toilet paper with which to dispatch the fellow.  Then I’m plunged into a vortex of middle-school phy-ed class shame as I repeatedly jab at the thing, but, being completely incapable of “leading” it, miss numerous times.  When I finally succeed, I squash the hell out of it, but before I toss the paper wad and corpse into the toilet, I always have to look.  Usually its legs are still twitching.  Then, as the adrenaline wears off over the next few hours, I lay in bed, unblinking, until I cry myself to sleep.

My first instinct was to declare total war on these insects, and I solicited friends and the mighty internet for help.  At that point, the plan was a mix of glue traps and flamethrowers.  But, one of my amigos explained to me while we were comparing house centipede stories that these things actually hunt and eat other bugs.  Apparently, they’re not after my family at all.  Apparently, the one time that a particular monstrous one got a hold of handgun, it wasn’t shooting at me.  It was shooting at some spiders behind me.

So now I’m stuck.  Do I let the really big gross bugs live because they help control the more numerous yet smaller gross bugs?  We do get quite a few spiders around our house, little cream-colored things with bulbous rear ends.  And one summer we did experience plague-level black flies in our basement, big slimy ones with red eyes and skull earrings.  How many spiders in corners of the ceiling equals the ickiness of one giant centipede?  I assume there is some formula for this that I learned in high school biology but have since forgotten.

Not my cat, but a cat, for scale

I am not sharing our dark little insect secret to ensure that you never, ever come over to visit.  Thinking about my little arthropod houseguests has been an important reminder for me about welcoming the “natural” back into our lives.  No doubt, a lot of people nationally and in this area are trying to add more nature to their communities, but it’s rarely that happy, clean nature we associate with trees in the median of the redone Hastings Way.  Nature is gritty, stinky, and has lots of legs.  For example, I’ve been pretty anti-backyard chickens since the debate began on that issue around here.  But, when you think about it, for all the good things they can provide (eggs, nuggets, whatever), a little smell and some clucking may not be so bad.  It’s, well, natural.  It’s the same with my resistance to expanding our garden and my insistence on regular lawn fertilizing.  I like green space, and trees, and plants, like I think a lot of us upper-midwesterners do.  But if we are going to get serious about this green living sustainable gobbly-gook, it’s not always going to happen in clean, symmetrical, pleasantly-scented rows.  Sometimes we are going to have to look the other way as the giant house centipedes steal some Oreos and slink back down to the basement.

This outlook may be put to the test fairly soon.  Whether we are discussing backyard chickens, the impending death of a huge portion of our local trees at the mandibles of the Emerald Ash Borer (seriously, what is it with these bugs?!?), larger swaths of community agriculture, or increased parkland, I believe we have to be open minded, even if the proposal doesn’t jive with our watered-down, wussified version of “nature.”  As applied to my centipedes, I guess this means I give them a free pass, at least until there’s lots of spiders because they’ve stopped doing their jobs, or one comes anywhere near my foot.  Then it’s time for a squishing’.