Living in this Brain

So, today I cleaned out the big fridge with the HUGE help of my roommate Ben, and found these two slightly squishy long green things from his mom's garden. They were a) zucchini or b) cucumbers.

I do not know which. I just Google image searched from my bed and tried to match that to my memory, and I still don't know. (Downstairs is far away and honestly - holding one might not do much to clarify things). I do distinctly remember Ben correcting me, but I don't remember what I said or what he said, so it's not helpful.

Anyway, Ben pulled them out to make for dinner and then spent the evening out, so I helpfully put them back in the crisper drawer so they wouldn't become more squishy. Tricky bit is, the whole fridge cleaning thing began because another cucumber/zucchini died and made juice in the drawer, and then the drawer can't come out unless you pull the fridge out, and then you have to wash the bottom of the fridge and clean behind it and now I have Cleaner Cough because I'm a delicate Victorian flower and can't handle Tilex or anything else fumy, really.

Right. So. I was like, "Oh, I'm leaving for London tomorrow, I'll write Ben a note and remind him to eat the XXXs before they produce juice." But what to call them?

Thought process:

1) Cannot identify food type
2) Google image search
3) Very similar
4) If they had warts they would definitely be cucumbers, but not all cucumbers have warts.
5) Other part of brain - "Hey, so that's not a necessary but is a sufficient condition for being a cucumber, provided other conditions are met, like being long and green and incapable of independent movement!"
6) Other other part of brain, "You are a dork."
6) Other other other part "Some of the things in the fridge today looked capable of independent movement."
7) Other impatient task-driver bit "Irrelevant. Cucumber or zucchini? We have no clue, do we?"
8) Bit of brain that watches for cackling, poor choice of clothes, and general awkwardness/insanity "Please don't use 'we' it makes our internal chorus sound crazy."
9) Impatient bit "Well, let's just text "I put the vegetables in the crisper drawer, eat them before they get drippy."
10) Everyone else, "THEY'RE NOT VEGETABLES THEY HAVE SEEDS."
11) "Well they function as vegetables, and isn't there a Supreme Court decision saying a tomato is a vegetable?"
12) Too cool bit, "Yeah, you're a huge dork."
13) Obscure knowledge bit, "Wasn't that Nix vs. Hedden? And 1890 something?"
14) ADD bit "Oooh, we need to go to trivia night . . ."
15) Mouth and stomach, "Ooooh, BEER!"
16) Central command, "Alright, everyone, this is ridiculous. And the anti-Cleaner Cough Benadryl is kicking in. Goodnight."

I think I'll just send Ben a link to this . . .

Poem of the Day: A Finger, Two Dots, Then Me

My friends Katie and Peter got married on the 4th of July this year, and Katie's brother Evan read this poem. And then I cried. Weddings will do that to you.

A Finger, Two Dots, Then Me
(the poem I’d like my future wife to read
when I finally crap out )

by Derrick Brown

Lying together in the park on Seventh,
our backs smoosh grass and I say
I will love you till I become a child,
when feeding and bathing me is no longer romantic,
but rather necessary.
I will love you till there is no till.
till I die.
And when that electroencephalogram shuts down, baby
that’s when the real lovin’ kicks in.

Forgive me for sounding selfish
but I won’t be able to wait under the earth for you,
(albeit a romantic thought for groundhogs,
gophers and the gooey worms.)
I will not be able to wait for you...

but I will meet up with you
and here’s where you will find me:
get a pen-

Hold your finger up
(two fingers if your hands are frail by now)
and count two stars directly to the left
of the North American moon.
You will find me there.
You will find me darting behind amazing quasars
Behind flirtatious winks
of bright and blasting boom stars!

Sometimes charging so far into space,
the darkness goes blue.
I will be there chasing sound waves
riding them like 2 dollar pony ride horses
that have finally broken free and wild.
I will be facing backwards, lying sideways,
no hands, sidesaddle, sometimes standing
sometimes screaming zip zang zowie!
My God, it’s good to be back in space... Where is everybody?

You will recognize my voice.
You will see the flash of a fire trail
burning off the back of me
burning like a gasoline comet Kerosene Sapphire.
This is my voice.
Don’t look for my body or a ghost.
I’ll resemble more a pilot light than a man now.

I’m sure some will see
this cobalt star white light from earth
and cast me a wish like a wonderbomb.
And I’ll think “Hmmph. people still do that?”

I’m sure I’ll take the light wonderbombs
to the point in the universe
where sound does end.
The back porch of God’s summer home.

It’s so quiet, you float
it feels the way cotton candy tastes.
He let’s me in through the back porch.
St. Peter’s busy in the front
building a catfish pond and swimmin’ hole
for sea-drowned-gray-green souls to enter up from.
I don’t mind his stories
I just get tired of his voice

So you should know what to look for
and exactly where to go...

Take your time and don’t worry about getting lost.
You’ll find me. Up there, a finger and two dots away.
If you're wondering if I’ll still be able to hold you
...I honestly don’t know

but I do know that I could still fall in love
with the swish of light that comes barreling
and cascading towards me
It will resemble your sweet definite hands.
The universe will bend.
The planets will bow.
And I will say “O, there ya are. I been waitin’ for ya. Now we can go.”

And the two pilot lights go zoooooooom
into the black construction paper night

as somewhere else
two other lovers lie down on their backs and say
“What the hell was that?”

And for good measure, here's the light saber duel that was part of the ceremony:

Hahaha

So - right after you fix healthcare . . . and can you do something about Firefly too? kthankx

Dear Reader

That's one of my favorites things to find in a book. A sentence beginning "Dear Reader . . ." I mean, you know you have a literate and witty writer on your hands when you see that. Plus, it's busting through the fourth wall, and that is always fun.

So, I feel that I need to write something so that all . . . 2 . . . or something of my loyal readers/creepy stalkers have something to look at besides that terrifying last post. So. My hair is reddish, I'm shopping for new roommates (some nice people located so far), I am considering officially declaring myself a nun for tax purposes, I'm wondering about trying to eat a vegan meal a day, I'm taking two summer classes, and I think I'm going to take the LSAT in September, because clearly what I need is another degree rather than, say, A JOB. Oh, and I might audition for American Idol. For shits and giggles. What should I sing? Think pop-rock but good for a lyric, and I want to show off my range. Also, when do they come to Denver???

There's your update.

Cathartic Creepiness

Ok, so this morning I had a super creepy dream. Really. It was incredibly creepy. I don't know what it means, and I don't have a Lifeline to Sigmund Freud. Interpret away. Unless you don't want to be creeped out.

It's really odd that I still remember it - normally I remember dreams when I wake up, if at all, and think something along the lines of: "well, that was fun" or "huh," and promptly forget it. But this one I still remember . . .

Ok, so I'm on a team of four people, no idea who exactly they are, but people I know and care about. There are other teams too. We're all in a large room with a glass floor in it, and under the floor is a dragon. Well, just the head of a dragon, it's rather large. The floor rolls back and the dragon opens its eye. Now, this is not an evil dragon, but it is carnivorous. And sphynx-like. We have to each answer a question, in turns, in our teams. If we get the answer wrong, the dragon eats us. Well, actually, we have to feed ourselves to dragon. Which at one point morphed into a sort of body a grub/earthworm thing with the torso of a woman. So apparently my subconscious worked out to sphynx thing and went for it, only in a nasty way. With a dose of inspiration from the South Park episode with Space Cash. Anyway, it was gross. Climbing into an earthworm stomach is disgusting. Also, at one point the earthworm/woman thing was starving and this guard sacrificed himself by climbing on in. Yergh. And like I said, I liked all the other teams, so while I wanted to be left standing, I didn't want them to go done. Quite dreadful.

So . . . is this an analogy for finals or am I insane? Mystery . . . hope I sleep better tonight. Last final tomorrow, woot woot.

The Derby (pronounced "Dahby")

"She ran with the heart of a locomotive, on champagne-glass ankles . . ."

I can't watch racing anymore. I'll just wait for the news people to tell me what horse broke a leg and had to be shot. Plus, even Derby winners don't always get retired to pasture after they finish their racing careers - a lot of them end up in dog food. Really. Like Black Beauty. So I'm doing homework instead.

Quote of the Day (QotD)

Alexandre Cabanel, Cleopatra Testing Poisons on Condemned Prisoners

"Certainly it would be a relief to cross Cleopatra off our list of objects we have lost, or believe we have lost: Atlantis, Jamestown, an entire tribe of Israel, good manners, Jimmy Hoffa."

Original NYT article here.

And another one, given the topic: "Age cannot wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety." If you don't know who wrote that, you have some reading to do.