Earnest Elephant #2

He used to bounce me on his knees when he told me his stories. His great adventures in the great orange truck with electrical tape apholstered seats stealing lunch meats from grocery stores and jackhammers from construction sites. We'd take a walk around the market, ending up at an Italian restaurant that seemed more like a diner, with plastic sparkling red booths and stools and silver edged tables. As I slurped my spaghetti and scoffed my meatballs, he grinned at my "sugu" covered face thinking he was showing his little girl off. But staring up at his balding head, like a sun between two clouds of white hair, I knew that he was sadly mistaken; I was the one showing him off. He was my best friend, and when we were finished eating, we'd walk the market again.

We'd approach my favorite fruit and vegetable stand and I'd jump to climb my way to the top. Past the juicy strawberries and plump tomatoes to the top of the rickety wooden boxes to the top of the mountain. A five-year old princess at the top of her castle and two wise wrinkled hands pick me up by the waist and spin me down. The freedom of the air through my hair and a dizzy tummy makes my spirit soar. Oh how I miss summers with Papa and Uncle Joe.

Years later, I sit around an old table, slurping on a beverage instead of spaghetti with a smile-covered face, recognizing the mischevious twinkle and sagelike personality in my friends. Friends, family, fun, and freedom are the keys to my happiness.

Creative Cardinal #2

Summer Girls

Blonde California girls sauteeing on a windshield
Their sweat sliding between ripe breasts in a way that it never does mine.
There's something about their slenderness that makes me want to smear them with salsa
Crunch them between my teeth to the tune of a mariachi band.

In the Summer, everything smells just a little bit like BBQ sauce
And marijuana smoke. Somebody sucks a bud the color of dank jade.
Meanwhile, I sit innocently on my parent's plaid picnic blanket
Pretending I'm not looking at the girl who looks nice reaching for her frisby.
I wish you'd clutch me with that enthusiasm, sweet cunt-sister.
She doesn't see me looking. Probably just as well.
My parent's words hum like bumblebees so I turn away. I mumble something.
"That's nice, honey."
The strawberries in my mouth are firm. They burst like red blood vessels.

The lightness in everybody else just makes me feel a little heavy.
It's the season for laughing shoulders to be clutched by soft, smiling elbows and pinched hips,
And obscenity. It's a custom. We say things on our cell phones that we never would in the snow.
"So, you know, like," [a girl passes, ribs constrained by red fabric] "we were just friends." Pause. "Just hanging out. Chilling out, talking, oral sex, whatever."
She laughs a little at something the other says.
"Yeah, exactly. I don't want any of those complications."

I've discovered that there are two kinds of women in the world:
The kind for whom bikinis mold like chocolate syrrup
The kind who can pull off freckles without looking eleven
The kind who, after diving for a volleyball, can get up without sneezing sand.
Then... there are the rest of us. We are the awkward ones.
Hustling back to our corners, we are contrite in our petrified shadow:
The kind who look better swathed in layers of fur and felt
The kind for whom red roses pierce their eyes painfully as a bad mushroom trip
The kind who have secret dreams that make them shiver, late at night.
[I never meant to objectify you, girl, but I never meant to break my lime-green umbrella either. Clumsiness is in my nature. I do apologize.]
I feel more visible under sunlight, thrown on a microscope slide.
It's unbearably awkward, in its way.

Sighs echo around my cold shower like fruitflies buzzing...
[I dream of watermelons]
God, I miss the half-thawed mud squeezing between my toes.

Daunting Dolphin #2

The bustle of the farmer’s market swirls around me. I can see piles of fresh fruit waiting to be hefted and groped. Mounds of cantaloupe and heaps of peaches shelter me while I let my hands move of their own accord. I find the right one. It gives in slightly to my probing pressure, hinting at the inner softness, but the flesh is firm and the skin unblemished. With a smile of triumph I claim it as my own.

Later, after the scent and sounds of the farmer’s market have been left behind, I run the cantaloupe under cool water. The contrast of the cool water and the searing heat makes me want to run under the sprinklers as though I were still a child.

The knife slices into the cantaloupe and the scent pours out. The musky scent of the cantaloupe makes the hot air as heavy as perfume, sweet as honey. The smooth flesh of the fresh fruit melts in my mouth. The flavor lingers in the corners of my mouth, the sweet wild taste coloring my words. My hands drip with the juice. It pours down from my fingers and pools in the hollows of my wrists. I raise my hands to my mouth lest I loose any drop of sweetness.

I lay on the grass outside. The shadows and sunlight chase each other across my body as the wind blows through the trees. The bowl of cantaloupe sits next to me, empty. A bee lands on the bowl, enjoying the juicy remnants that even I could not salvage from the bowl. This is summer. It is the fresh fruit and the scents and the cold water splashing, shocking me into recognizing the heat around me. It is the grass and the sun flickering on my pale-winter skin.

Tenacious Tiger #2

7/13/42 -- They finally let us join, after all these years. I'm being sent to Moton tomorrow to start our introduction and basic training. I never would've dreamt of the day they let a black man fly a plane. And the 4th was great; it was a nice time to see my family before I leave. Cheap gin, sticky smoked sausages, and tangy lemonade. I'm gonna miss it all.

7/22/47 -- Hottest day of the year, today. I woke up around 3am and could see sweat beading up on Charlotte's back, reflecting the flashing MOTEL sign out the screen window. We were stewing in the heat last night, the only thing hotter was Char's breath on my neck while she slept. We need some rain.

8/12/50 -- We sent Michael off to his first day of school today. Charlotte broke down in the car and we had to wait to see him wave out the window before we could leave--even though we'd be back in 3 hours. I can tell already, he's born to be a football player like his dad. Char can't bear the thought of her boy growing up alone; so I've been exhausted these past few nights. She's an animal.

5/15/53 -- Charlotte and I went to Massey Hall tonight, downtown. Hot, sticky, blazing jazz was the vice de la nuit. Parker, Gillespie, Powell, Mingus, and Roach spent the night with their eyes shut, strings of notes being spat left and right . Rings of smoke hovered near the rafters as rich white men kept hitting on young white girls. Near the back, with Char and I, Rita and Tony danced 'round; bourbon in one hand, a sweat-drenched palm in the other. Booze, love, and bebop; these are the nights I live for.

Daring Dragonfly #2

Memories of Summer

That lilting, catchy, wordless tune. Running to dad and asking for money, then tearing down the block with the other kids chasing the white truck. Holding up a tiny fist full of quarters and pulling back a fudgecicle. Laughing and smiling and ruining my appetite, just like mom always said I would. And the smiling face of the tall man in the white uniform leaning out to make a young boy’s dreams come true - these are the memories of summer.

Warmer weather and shorter hemlines. Less clothing on the girls I went to school with. The last days of the semester, when the girls would lay out in the quad, or by the dorms in their bikinis working on their tans. Halter tops. Short skirts. Flip flops – these are the memories of summer.

Trips to the beach with family, spending way too much money on fireworks. Hunting for the perfect log to build a beach bonfire on, setting up camp around noon when the town’s fireworks display was set for 9:30. Watching people set off flares in the dark, and dodging fireworks that tilted on their side after being lit, diving for cover and hoping no one got hurt – these are the memories of summer.

The smell of lighter fluid. Watching the little briquettes turn from deep black to white and grey. The dark black lines of the grill on the meat. Corn on the cob. Hamburgers. Hot dogs. Chicken. Ribs. Bright red barbeque sauce that tastes of honey and spice – these are the memories of summer.

Flippant Flamingo #2

His life began in the sixties, but unlike others of his generation, he had a determination to work hard. Always the first one awake, the last one done for the day, he made it his duty to make sure everyone made it to school and home again safely, no matter how cold it got, how deep the snow, or rowdy the kids.

Finally, in his teens, he took on a summer job, shuttling campers, CITs, and a few adults to 4-H camp in the mountains. He saw plenty of the flirting, playing, and teasing that normally happen when summer enthusiasm meets an attractive peer. It was, however, a 16-year old CIT and a 21-year-old archery instructor that caught his eye. It took a few well-placed jostles, but two years later he watched with a grin as the bride and groom were chauffeured up to “their” 4H camp. Then, one year, he was suddenly pulled out of service. “Too old” he was told. “Too many years of hard work.”

Despite this forced early retirement, he did his best to be as active as possible, to keep everything in good working order. Then, one day, the news reached him that that young bride and groom now had kids of their own, and were looking once again for someone like him to take them camping every summer.

He jumped at the chance. And when the bride and groom realized that he was the very same school bus they had met on, it wasn’t even a question. They bought him on the spot. First to go were all the old school-bus benches and uncomfortable driver’s seat. Then came wall-to-wall carpeting, a working bathroom and kitchen, beds, even a genuine La-Z-Boy chair for the driver to relax in. A new coat of brown and tan paint, and what had once been a nameless school bus was now The Brown Rose, a custom motor home that had gotten a second lease on life.

Summer after summer, it became a tradition that the family cleaned out the bus, restocked it’s small pantry with the makings of s’mores and Dutch-oven meals, then took off for parts unknown. Trips to Yellowstone, to campgrounds, family reunions, even a few long drives to Oregon. The Brown Rose was a fixture at practically every campground he visited. The deck on his roof served for hundreds of nights of stargazing (and a few GOOD water fights), the awning rolled out over the sleepy family while they took naps in the provided shade, or hid from the relentless rain. The kitchen helped create hot-cocoa (maybe with a bit of peppermint schnapps) for those cold winter nights, and even Brownie, the family dog, had a comfortable spot to sleep.

Then, slowly, as the kids left, the Brown Rose slowed down. For a year, and then two, the family simply didn’t have the time to clean him or take him camping. Instead of weeks in the mountains, it was weekend trips to cities.

Then, just a few months ago, The Brown Rose was offered a third life. The couple’s nephew, always a free spirit at heart that understood the desire to get out there and keep going, offered to take the Brown Rose as a river shuttle—to haul white-water rafts and their enthusiastic guides up and down any decent river they could find. The couple happily agreed, and the Brown Rose is once again shuttling generation after generation on their summer adventures.

Not too bad for a big yellow school bus.

Precious Panda # 2

Bee all you can be.

It was June, and for Arun Ashymana, that meant two things: it was summer, and it was time to defend his Scripps National Spelling Bee title again. As he boarded the 747 non-stop to Dulles International, alone, Arun tightened his grip on his first class boarding pass. As he massaged the paper between his fingers, he smiled, and thought to himself “one more time, one more summer.”

Since winning his third spelling bee title a year ago, Arun had become about as high profile a celebrity as a 14-year-old speller can. As he de-planed, Arun stopped to sign autographs in the jet way, his trophy an impediment to those trying to pass. In the distance, he noticed a sign that read: Arun Ashymana, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Fort Worth, Tixas. Climbing into his limousine (L-I-M-O-U-S-I-N-E, thought Arun), the driver asked where his parents were. When Arun didn’t answer, the driver commented that he seemed quiet. “You spelled Texas wrong on the sign” Arun quipped. “I don’t expect genius from someone whose career has leveled out driving teen spellers around, but come ON. Five letters, hoss. Can I keep that sign? My parents will love it.” When the driver handed the sign back and rolled up the dividing window with distain, Arun said quietly, “one more time, one more summer.”

The Hyatt was covered in Scripps Spelling Bee paraphernalia (P-A-R-A-P-H-E-R-N-A-L-I-A, Arun whispered to himself), and while the other contestants seemed taken aback by the display, Arun wasn’t impressed. He had been professionally spelling since he was 11. Cockily, he strutted through the lobby wearing a shirt that read “I’m from the The SC: Sub-Continent,” a parody of his India heritage. Despite his confident appearance, Arun was an emotional wreck. The truth was that his parents didn’t make the trip to Washington D.C. because it all seemed boring to them at this point. Arun would win, pay for another year of college, and be home in time to compete in the annual Punt, Pass and Kick Competition, in which he placed 3rd last year. They didn’t know that Arun was very hurt by their absence, or that he vowed to take the gloves off this time around with no one to hold him back.

Arun breezed through the first four rounds, spelling quickly and confidently. After all, he had studied his first two words, “pharisaical” and “arbuscle,” just weeks before the competition, and “pruritus” was so easy he felt embarrassed spelling it. After he laughed aloud when a skinny white girl misspelled oligopsony, she started to cry even before she was ushered off the stage. Everyone around Arun was glaring at him by now, so when round five rolled around, he felt no reason to not say what was on his mind. Arun closed his eyes and smelled the microphone before asking, “does it come from a Latin word meaning, ‘I’m the best speller in the room, no one’s close?’” Then he quickly fired out “lederhosen” and sat down before anyone could respond. Feeling his chair was familiar. As he reclined in it and started to doze off on stage, Arun thought to himself, “one more time, one more summer.”

The next morning, they were dropping like flies. A girl from Connecticut went down on “edulcorate” while a Mexican boy from Arizona dropped on “glockenspiel.” Before a girl named Laura from Tennessee was about to spell, Arun said behind her, “you will NOT spell this word right…you’re going to panic and choke.” He was right. She screwed up “argillaceous” and earned 9th place. By the time Arun was one of only two spellers left, he had successfully made 15 different children cry. When he shouted at his final opponent, “You’re going to fuck this up and we both know it…just take your free t-shirt and go back to Indiana” live on ESPN-2, the judges—and the audience-- had finally had enough. Arun was disqualified and the 2005 Scripps National Spelling Bee was awarded to Kelly Margowitsky, representing the Birmingham Post-Herald, Birmingham, Alabama.

Thinking of his absent parents, Arun leapt off the stage and grabbed the trophy, sprinting out the door. “One more time, one more summer” he shrieked, laughing hysterically and knowing his summer had finally started.

Giddy Giraffee #2

Summer means tan lines
Solid stripes across my thighs
I’m not a zebra


Bikini you bitch
Suck in tummy, thinking thin
Screw this, swimming sucks.


Ode to my hotdog
Yellow mustard oh so good
5 inches of joy!


Working on my tan
Lazy, sprawling, soaking sun
Why am I so red?!?

Ferocious Fox #2

summer in pantoum*

Memories, like stars, fall down;
visions of what could have been.
Dreams formed in a childhood town;
the parents away sipping their gin.

Visions of what could have been:
lying on a floor to watch the fan
(the parents away sipping their gin)
and "playing house" as a grown up man.

Lying on a floor to watch the fan.
A woman moistened by the touch of a hand.
And playing house as a grown up man.
An illusion of romance never bland.

A woman moistened by the touch of a hand;
on a beach brought alive by the seagulls cry.
An illusion of romance never bland;
a tryst of a season like a firefly.

On a beach brought alive by the seagulls cry
time dripped slowly from a lemonade pitcher.
A tryst of a season like a firefly --
summer always left her lovers richer.

Time dripped slowly from a lemonade pitcher
puddles so deep one wants to drown.
Summer always left her lovers richer.
Memories, like stars, fall down.

_________________________________________
*Pantoum: a poetic form made of a series of four lined stanzas (quatrains). The line pattern is as follows: First Quatrain 1-2-3-4, Second Quatrain 2-5-4-6, Third Quatrain 5-7-6-8, and so on. The final line in the final quatrain is the same as the first line of the poem. The rhyme is abab in each quatrain, so the lines rhyme alternately.

TKO Question #2

TKO Question #2 [Fiction]
"Summertime and the living is easy
Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high"
-- Summertime

What four images say summer to you? Relate them together in prose/poetry/whatever-suits-your-fancy.

Responses:

Ferocious Fox
Giddy Giraffee
Precious Panda
Flippant Flamingo
Daring Dragonfly
Tenacious Tiger
Daunting Dolphin
Creative Cardinal
Earnest Elephant
Brainy Badger
Sassy Snake
Wordy Woodpecker
Benign Butterfly
Original Owl
Mysterious Monkey

Earnest Elephant #1

I always felt like the ugly duckling. I never wore glasses or had a severe acne problem, but I was never a girl the boys looked at, unless it was to poke fun. I was identified as intelligent at an early age, and it was the source of most of my teasing. My best friends were books and a couple of other quiet people who enjoyed books.

We read mostly fantasy and when Madeline L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time I was prepared for your average fantasy ride. Immediately, however, I identified with mousy-haired Meg and her unique little brother Charles Wallace. I quickly read the entire series, and fell in love with A Swiftly Tilting Planet. As grown-up Meg communicates with Charles Wallace, I realized more and more about myself with every page I turned.

Meg revealed that I wouldn't be a loser forever, that I could make the transfer from ugly duckling to graceful swan. That everyone can find their Prince Charming and have their own version of a happy ending.

Wordy Woodpecker #1

On a family vacation to the Dominican Republic, my father handed me a book with the comment that it was the kind of book you just couldn’t put down. Having slaved through numerous English courses, my first instinct was that this was a dirty, dirty lie. The last book which, according to the teacher, was the kind of book that can’t be put down that I read was Moby Dick. After slaving through chapter after chapter devoted to such intellectually stimulating topics like how to properly gut a whale, I began to associate the words “a book you can’t put down” with “a book that is unentertaining, but damnit, I had to read it, so you will too!” As so, I took my father’s description of Ender’s Game, the book he handed me, with a grain of salt. But I began to read it anyways, if but to satisfy my father. And then I got hooked.

Ender’s Game grabbed my undivided attention so easily because the thoughts and actions of the characters are so realistic, especially that of Ender himself. I identified with Ender very quickly based upon my middle school and high school experiences. During those years in particular, students always seem to fit other people into a neat classification scheme. People are defined as jocks, nerds, preps, Goths, etc. and they are trapped within their label. I was the math nerd. No matter what I did in school plays, no matter how many sports I play, no matter how much how many hours of flying time under my belt, I was the math nerd. Nearly everyone’s interactions with me revolved around the fact that my identity was the math nerd who took classes 4 years above grade level. From acquaintances, to teachers, to even my friends, people assume the qualities of the stereotype into me. Rather then attempting to know the real Wordy Woodpecker, people chose the easier path, viewing everything I did as actions of a math nerd. In the book, Ender too faces this dilemma as he is classified as the greatest military strategist who would save the world. Nothing other then that identity mattered.

The reactions and internal conflicts concerning this crude categorizing of people in the book is also closely mirrored by own experiences. I wanted to be known for who I am and not just some idle construct that my identity had been forced into. As long as I was getting high marks in math, my identity would always be the math nerd. This got me thinking about how that I could escape this if only my math ability no longer stood out and that I was at the level of the majority of the people around me. While I resisted it, the temptation to underperform if but to escape the identity the school had forced me was strong. In the book, during the climatic scene where he is given a task that seems impossible, he goes through a similar internal conflict. He too saw that underperforming could finally allow him to escape all the expected associated with the identity that was imprinted onto him.

The human brain, by design, is one that always is trying to find patterns, even when they don’t exist. All too often, people find themselves categorized into a mere façade of what they are; an empty stereotype that misses the nuances of each person. But rather than attempting to deliberately escape this façade, I learned to stay who I was. While this may allow others to quickly classify me, I can know that they are some who can see past the label and know me, without me having to change who I am. And your true identity is the one thing that must be never given up.

Mysterious Monkey #1

The Chronicles of Narnia is an allegory. It is, actually, allegory in the mostest classicalest sense: it is a direct retelling of certain parts of the Bible. Lots of people know this; not everybody figured it out when they were eight.

In the same way that the torturing and killing of Aslan serves as a narrative element to retell the execution of Christ, my slightly-too-early understanding of the allegorical nature of the Chronicles retells the experience of my entire childhood. My mother always told me I was two years ahead of myself intellectually, and a year and a half behind emotionally. Thanks, mom; but it turned out she was right.

I finished The Last Battle (where everyone goes to Narnia permanently, because Narnia is actually Heaven and the world has ended) and sat and thought for a little while. I told my mom, "I don't think this is just a fantasy book. I think it's about God and things too." And she said, "Um, well."

Figuring out allegorical references did not make it any easier to relate to my friends at sleepovers, few of which I was invited to; nor did my superhuman powers of fantasy-book analysis deliver any attention to me from girls in high school. So imagine my surprise when I realized the other day that I'll actually have a date to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when it premieres.

Brainy Badger #1

Being chosen last for playground kickball is actually only the second most humilating experience of nerd childhood. The worst is being a subject of a "trade of liabilities", when the self-appointed captains of the teams begin to bargain, "I'll take her if you'll take him." When other people continuously refuse to recognize value in your existence, you start to believe them. That makes it all the more powerful when you encounter a different view -- one where the nerd saves the world.

Maybe its a need to overcompensate by replacing untouchable status with transcendant hero, but Andrew "Ender" Wiggin in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game always wins. Always. And, more importantly, Ender always wins because of his intellect and never because of his puny physical prowess. Further, the consequences of Ender's battles couldn't be more important -- any failure, any loss might result in humanity losing a war with an enemy with whom negotiation, and even basic communication, is impossible.

Of course, its science-fiction and well beyond any situation that is likely to occur in anyone's daily life. Science-fiction books like Ender's Game are part and parcel of the nerd mystique, right? But, once we stop chuckling, we can realize that there are reasons beyond mere escapism for some people's obsessive attachments to games like Dungeons and Dragons and genre like fantasy and science fiction. In these alternative worlds, the anti-intellectualism and petty violence that pervades school-age life in our modern society melts away, replaced with powers and abilities of the mind that give socially crippled young people hope that there may yet exist real-world analogues that will bring them meaning, respect, and even -- like Ender -- victory.

Original Owl #1

It was like living in a dimly lit room that I didn't realize was dimly lit. Having always been there, having adjusted to shadowy light, I had no idea anything brighter existed. But then a light came on, revealing doors and hallways and stairs, all leading to a new kind of consciousness to which I was just being introduced.

I was 12 years old when I first discovered a concept that would forever shape and mold my ways of thinking, learning, and being. I was 12 years old when it first hit me: Reality is fluid. There are no concrete constants, no real black and white. Shades of grey surround and enthrall us, sometimes leading us astray, sometimes showing us the beauty and horror of unadulterated truth. Reality is what you make of it, and people are remarkably creative animals.

Robert Cormier's novels all have a tendency to stretch the mind and question "normalcy," but none does this so thoroughly and completely as "I am the Cheese." The story of a boy confined to a mental institution who has no idea that he's not living his life free and unfettered is one that not only confused and distressed me, but also one that introduced me to the fascinating practice of psychology. Whether you believe it to be an art or a science, the study of "why" in reference to human behavior is something that has entranced me for nearly a decade.

Rowdy Racoon #1

Late one evening long ago, I approached my mother demanding to know why she hadn’t placed me in dance or gymnastic lessons as a toddler, so that I could be world famous and rich at the ripe old age of 15. She looked hurt, as any mother would when their beloved child accuses them of bad raising. And for good reason, by that point in my life things had begun to fall apart in a big way. Was I blaming her for everything that had happened to me? I know she often blamed herself. I love my mother though, and that, also for very good reason. After a few moments she raised her head and looked into my fiery eyes. With a voice smooth and strong she said “I taught you to love reading, so you could choose for yourself how to devote your life.” Then with slightly more uncertainty she looked away and finished, “I thought that would be enough.”

It was.

The problem was I wasn’t choosing how to devote my life, I was barely even living it. At the age of 15 I was in removed from school after a suicide attempt for “emergency psychiatric consultation.” I let the things that happened to me, well, happen to me, and nothing more. At 17 I dropped out of school and ran away from home. I wouldn’t fight for anything, even my sanity, and I had no pride in myself.

My mother’s words came full circle that year in a passage from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

“I wanted you to see something about her.- I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.'"

Atticus Finch was referring to Mrs. Dubose, a little remembered character from the novel who painfully weaned herself from her addiction to morphine as she approached death. She was determined to die dependent on no one and no thing besides herself and her God.

As difficult as life seemed, I began to fight, inspired by this fictional character. I am a strong and courageous woman, and I was able to put my life back together better than it had ever been before. There are countless examples and touching stories I could relate about the next few years of my life, but the bottom line is this; My mother was right about a lot of things. She was miraculously and wonderfully right when she said reading allows you to choose how to devote your life. Devote your life to fighting for good and equality, loving others with a perfect and devoted love, finding your Prince Charming or simply being the best you can be. Do so with pride and strength, change the world, and see it through no matter what… you rarely win, but sometimes you do.

Arty Ant #1

I have often believed that everyone one has a root within their soul that is the core of their desires. This root can be created through life struggles, epiphanies, or even a good book. My root was always to be accepted and treated equal. Acceptance and equality, the kind of blend even more perfect than Chirac & Schroeder, Bush & Blair, or even Manmohan Singh & Sonia Gandhi. You probably sense sarcasm in the last sentence and if so you would be correct. Unlike most desires, i know mine is a life long journey that may never be accomplished, and it all started with one trilogy.

It was third grade when i begin to embark upon the imaginative world that would change my life forever. At that point in my life, i had already read several books and was accustomed to hiding in my room for days at a time, scrolling through each new world that the authors would reveal to me. In this case, the book was not singular but actually a trilogy entitled "The Tripods" by John Christopher. The story was unusual for me because it was science fiction, which is something I rarely read. I had always been more a fan of fantasy or suspense, but Science fiction...well, this was uncharted territories for my imagination. The book came to me at a very important time in my life. Since kindergarten i had been ridiculed for my height. My mom, to this day, believes most of my lack of self-esteem was rooted in the fact i was teased from the moment i stepped on a playground. Imagine being only in kindergarten, knowing nothing of life, and being teased and mocked for something you could not control, did i mention it was a private Christian school? After years of transferring schools to no avail, i chose to immerse my life into readings. Books could not hurt me and books would never mock me, they were accepting.

The prequel to the trilogy entitled "When the Tripods Came" was about tripods coming to Earth and brainwashing people. The plot was not what changed my life, it was, as it always is, the characters. The main character along with two other boys set on a journey for freedom, for all. This was the first thing the book resonated in me, the idea of equality and everyone being free...to be themselves. The side character Beanpole had the greatest impact on my life. He was a tall skinny pimple faced NERD. To me, he represented all of the outcasts in society. He was the embodiment of a loser. Yet, the other two boys accepted him and looked at his heart, not his external features. I used to fantasize about what my life would be like if all my friends could do the same.

To this day, I can't help but shed a tear of joy remembering how happy i was when later in the series the NERD would get the girl, and help save everyone from the alien invasion.

It was that first book and the nerd that created a core of desire to be accepted and live in a society where everyone was equal. No matter what happened in my life, whether it was suicidal attempts to drug addicted parents to average old rejection from the opposite sex, i knew that no matter how much i wished to cut the core of desires out from within me it would never happen.

Books like "The Tripod" would never allow it, and neither would Beanpole.

Benign Butterfly #1

Even though I was only ten, I knew that my friend Natalie was a little weird. She wouldn’t let our Barbies be professional ice skaters – she wanted them to be strippers. It made me feel funny but she always let me play with the brown-haired doll even thought I knew it was her favorite. And she did have the camping trailer so I let it go.

The last night I ever spent at her house, her mom took us to the grocery store. She told us we could pick whatever snack and movie we wanted as long as we were quiet. I chose the food – a package of raw cookie dough that we later ate even though we burnt the cookies. She chose Salem’s Lot for our movie. It’s the 1979 tale of a vampire epidemic in a small Northwestern town.

My mother hadn’t even let me watch PG-13 movies yet. The hottest scene I’d ever watched was Prince Charming kissing Sleeping Beauty. The scene in Little Mermaid when the chef chased Sebastian with a butcher’s knife was the most violent thing I’d ever seen. And of course, I’d never seen a scary movie.

But my mom wasn’t there to tell me no and Natalie’s mom was too interested in the latest issue of The Inquirer to care what we’d picked. She let us watch the movie in her bedroom alone. We huddled in her bed only a few feet from the screen.

I was scared. Terrified. So frightened I’m not sure why I didn’t wet my pants. Natalie at least pretended to be brave so I tried to hide the fear consuming every hair on my body. The vampires growling with their milk-white faces and blood-red lips looked so close to me that I was certain that they’d reach out and grab me. When I needed to scream, I stuffed my open mouth against a pillow to hide my yelling. I wanted to die because I knew that was the only way I’d forget what I’d seen.

After the movie, it took me hours to fall asleep. I kept hearing vampire claws scraping at the window and I could feel hot vampire breathe on my neck. Finally, when I heard was sure Natalie has fallen asleep, I sobbed until I too fell asleep.

When I came home, I told my mother. I knew she’d be mad but I hadn’t yet learned to keep secrets from her. She brushed my hair behind my ears and told me it was okay. It was just a movie, it’s not real. And yet, I didn’t believe her.

Salem’s Lot rocked my world. It shattered the perfect picture of life that my parents had so carefully built. The world wasn’t so rose-colored and not every movie ends with happily ever after. That’s when I started doubting everything my parents had told me. Maybe all dogs don’t go to heaven. Maybe Santa doesn’t really have eight reindeer. Maybe my face won’t stay that way.

I can’t remember my fourth-grade teacher’s name, but I can still remember the shrill scream of the women attacked by the vampires. My perfect world has been infected with hundreds more blemishes but I’ll never forget the first pock on that image. And I am still scared shitless of horror films.

Daunting Dolphin #1

They were always a bit worried about me, really. It was the combination of speed and lethargy. My mind seemed to race, but my mouth couldn’t keep up. I slurred and stuttered and got so excited that I would bounce on my toes until my hair fell into my face and no one could see my face. I was a little mop on top of a chubby little body, not a student.

My siblings were never this way. They sat quietly and read, even if my older sister moved her lips and used her fingers to track the words until she was 10 or so. They were good readers, good students and good speakers. I garbled all of my words so badly that no one outside my family knew what I was talking about. And I couldn’t really read.

To be fair, I could read enough to justify my place in the first grade. That’s not really saying much, but I did know the alphabet and I had a pretty good grasp on the idea that spelling was not optional. On birthday presents I tended to sign my name backwards and used capital letters as decorative elements whenever I fancied. At least I knew that letters meant something.

I hated reading, though: I couldn’t sit still for it. Even now, if I read something I find interesting or amusing, I hope I’m in the room alone: I cannot prevent myself from interrupting others to share lines like “he screamed like an angel that had just discovered why he was on the wrong side.” Back then, I never read far enough into a single book to find lines like that. Lines that seared across my mind and made me want to pick up a paintbrush (until I figured out that I can’t paint; now I reach for my pen and paper).

My mother did her best- I had the entire Boxcar Children book set in all their insipid glory on my shelf. My siblings had loved them. Each night I would pretend to read before I went to bed. Instead I wandered off to explore the edges where my mind curled back onto itself. It was easy to get away with it in school. Few teachers were willing to mentally translate the slurred and stuttering speech into something comprehensible.

It didn’t last. Work with a speech therapist toned down one line of miscommunication, and the stories about what happened to liars prevented intentional miscommunications. I had to learn how to sit still long enough to actually read or face my teachers’ wrath.

I was lucky. I found the right book at the right time. We were allowed to choose any book we wanted and bring it into class for individual reading time. As a first grader, these tended to be simplistic books along the same lines as the hated Boxcar Children books. But I found the right book: in the dusty and slightly creepy basement, hidden among the rest of the beat-up old books I found a slim volume entitled Shadow Castle by Marian Cockrell.

It was fantasy, of course. It was like a daydream that had been written down by someone who had mastered the strange arts of spelling and capitalization. It was perfect. I devoured it and demanded more. I could communicate now and I knew what I wanted. My teachers wavered between excited and bemused until settling on placation. They recommended books and allowed me to read what I wanted.

Shadow Castle did what nothing else had been able to do, and I learned how to sit still and read. I learned how to read because I found books that let my mind explore in the same bizarre places it took itself naturally. Eventually my enjoyment of reading expanded, and I could stomach the idea of reading assigned books. Shadow Castle was lost in the shuffle.

I spent years looking for another copy of that book. Without the internet, an out-of-print not particularly popular book was difficult for a child to find. I didn’t get my hands on a new copy until I was in high school.

It was terrible. The book was absolute drivel in a way that only saccharine children’s books can be. It’s on my bookshelf now. It has pride of place between Macbeth and Never Let Me Go. I read it every summer.

Sassy Snake #1

In case you missed the press release, god died many years ago in a tragic accident.

I’m not talking about a hunting mishap, when your best friend realizes that your blood doesn’t match her hip hunting vest. Heavenly Father died in a construction snafu, and it was his own damn fault.

I first fell in love with God when I was in 5th grade. That was the year that God got all up in my shit. I was filled with Christ love, and I was loving it. Those hymns were so cool, and I was fascinated by the mystery of Sunday service. Lots of people all united around a common cause. A veritable patchwork quilt of humanity, so long as humanity was white and upper middle class. Plus, Jesus was ripped.

I read through the bible with ferocious intensity. A book a night was my required reading but it could snowball when I got really into it. And what’s not to love: murder, rape, incest, masturbation, and whores just to start. The bible was full of indecency, and my family was just impressed that I wanted to read it. In 5th grade it was the little things that I took pleasure in.

Despite these early religious predisposition, my love of church quickly diminished when my parents decided to get divorced. My Mom was to tired to convince me and my brothers to attend Church, and I became and ETC christian (Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas). This attendance was even lower when I spent time with my Dad. His love for God was pretty much on par with his love for my mother, and considering he called my mom the bitch of 3rd Avenue, that’s not really a lot of love. Granted, I don’t think he ever poured gasoline on the Church’s lawn, but he could roll with hateful invectives against the Church for quite some time.

After a few years, I decided to reenter the halls of dogma, mostly because of the youth group director. Christ the King Lutheran Church (ELCA) had decided that it was time to increase outreach to the youth community, and had hired two new directors. Ashley was a cute, but Landon was HOTT. Ironic vices reconnected me to Jesus.

Sadly, my hot Texan youth group leader was short lived. He returned to Texas a few short weeks after I began to regularly attend. But Ashley was pretty awesome. The only odd thing was that youth group was more of a eat at Denny’s kinda group than a “talk about god” institution. One night she tried to teach us about humility, and the last supper, by getting us to wash each others feet. That quickly died when James and I put sardines in her shoes. Luckily a trip to Denny’s quickly eliminated any animus.

Thus, my relationship with God was one of convenience. Jesus got me food, and I went to his meetings. It worked for me, but it really didn’t build a lasting relationship with a higher power. God was dead at this point, I just didn’t know it yet.

My senior year, I acquired the fire. Or at least I went to a conference titled “Acquire the Fire.” This conference was when I first realized that God had died. At this conference I went to session intended to talk about other religions. In this meeting, it was posited that other religions come from a dementing of the word of God because of the collapse of the Tower of Babel. When God destroyed the Tower of Babel he decided to let the world collapse into a myriad of languages and different cultures. The person running this group session claimed that other religions emerged from the ashes of natural chaos that comes from a large variety of languages.

I came to a different conclusion. I decided that when the Tower of Babel fell, God buried himself beneath the ruins. My friendly, entertaining, vengeful God accidentally killed himself in a horrible construction accident. If God is the one TRUTH, he requires a common language in order to be realized. The vagueness and ambiguity of language renders any attempt to reach a common truth and useless pursuit in intellectual masturbation (Not that intellectual masturbation isn’t fun, several of us, including our gracious host are debaters after all). The collapse of the Tower of Babel signified the death of univocal truth, the death of metanarrative, and the death of God. At least that’s my freaky literal truth of the bible interpretation.

Dear God,

Why did you have to let Nietzsche be right?

Love,
Me

Creative Cardinal #1

To insolate something down to a moment a word a thought that changed my life… it’s asking too much of me. It’s like demanding I remember when I first tasted rain. I was raised on literature. My mother sat me on her knee and read to me soft stories form the Bible or from 101 Dalmations. Or the “Very Hungry Caterpillar”… That used to be my favorite. And there was a squished book that I liked to chew on, something about a sleeping turtle? Mommy read the story to me so many times that I memorized it and pretended to read the story out loud to her. There are pictures of me proudly “reading”, the book upside-down.

Actually, you probably think it’s kind of silly but my morality and identity was sculpted, in a large part, by Dr. Seuss. Come to think about it, everything I am can be collected into some thoroughly ludicrous rhyme. For example, I have spent my entire life searching for the magical, whimsical place of Katroo, which is my own personal Xanadu (From “Happy Birthday to You”). It’s a wonderful world where children have parades in their honor, breakfast in bed, and everybody is loving and kind for you. No one pushes you down at recess and makes you eat mud. Okay, the part of me that is a critical adult responds to “For Birthday luncheons as a rule/We serve hot dogs, rolled on a spool,” with enraged protests over animal cruelty, heart attacks, and the glorification of consumer culture as the ultimate good. YOU CAPITALIST BASTARDS! But inside my non-pretentious heart, there is a part of me that snickers, wanting nothing more than to pulp all the endangered bird species’ eggs together for my selfish delight. Mmm… nothing sounds better to me this moment than some Scrambled Eggs Super! (ala Peter T. Hooper). It’s akin to the part of me that wants to be the first person taken into space for the purposes of tourism. A rational part of me says that sightseeing on Jupiter has got to be really bad for the environment of good ol’ Mother Earth (all the fuel expended and poisons released into the environment and all), but if someone offered me a ticket I’d be there in a heartbeat. And to have sex in zero-g? Damn!

Anyway, lucky for a world that has enough ruthless dictators already, the hedonistic side of me is tempered with other values I have inherited from the Good Doctor. For example, I have a rather annoying twinge of conscience that was imparted to me directly by dicta on justice from such works as The Five Hundred Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. The greatest unfairness of the world is that some people suffer for something that’s not their fault. Bartholomew was going to be killed just because the universe decided that he was going to wear a hat. It wasn’t his fault that he was wearing a hat, in fact, he fought the hat. Nevertheless, he was going to be punished, and that was anything but moral. My lack of love for authority figures can be drawn from the people in Seuss’ books that impose such silly laws. Why should anyone obey a king who would kill somebody just because they wore a nice hats? (speaking of which, I wonder if that’s where I got my love of shopping and accessories…some of those be-gemmed, be-feathered hats were pretty rad.) Who would obey a leader that called down the Oobleck? You could say that Bartholomew was the first inspiration for all my later, civil disobedience (we both have a kind of tame, mousy style, looking at the world with big, wide eyes, confused that it is quite so ridiculous as it has turned out to be). Oooh, I almost forgot to mention the ruler from Yertle the Turtle… now there was a tyrannical regime if ever I saw one!

And wouldn’t it just be the awesomest thing ever if there was a LGBTQ parade where everybody wore stars on their bellies? Sneetches & Other Stories taught me about equality. We’re not that different, after all, and even before I sensed the queer tendencies skimming through my own blood I recognized that there were rights that everyone should enjoy, regardless of the minutia of sexual orientation. (Speaking of those “Other Stories” was anyone else totally freaked out by the wandering pants? That scared the shit out of me when I was little.)

Of course it’s ironic that my very-Republican grandparents gave me my first doses of liberalism in The Lorax and the The Butter Battle Book, but to go into the political ramifications of those stories are obvious to the point of tedium. Let’s face it, Doctor Seuss has got to be one of the greatest pamphleteers on the planet. His propaganda indoctrination skill is unparalleled, so subtle that there are no calls by Republicans to cut his funding or schools trying to ban his works. That’s what I want to be as a writer—I want to impart and justify my values in logical, reasonable fashion, so quietly it becomes a definition of you from the inside-out and not from some methodic preaching.

I wish I lived in Katroo. I wish things were that easy. I wish that people didn’t forget my birthday, that I had a chocolate cake ten-stories high with peppermint frosting, and that everyone would see each other as cuddly, furry little creatures worthy of acclaim of themselves. I still love reading Dr. Seuss and all those childhood stories, call it nostalgia or sentimental or whatever. I have a dream, and it comes straight from the pages of the books read to me at bedtime.

Soft, soft… turtle creeps.
Hush, hush… turtle sleeps.

Giddy Giraffee #1

It happened when I was in fourth grade, age 10. It had been such a dreadful year. It was the year of the big move, my mom’s 2nd marriage, my 1st time testifying in court and above all it was the year of a no lace, no frills, no tiny pink rosebud, plain jane training bra my mother insisted I wear.



I remember the precise location of my life altering book. Third floor of my grandparent’s house, in the office, back wall bookcase, fourth shelf, 6th book from the left. It was jutted out a few inches as if it was jumping off of the bookshelf. In all the hours I’d spent pouring over this bookshelf, I’d never noticed it before. I knew right away something was special about this book. It was old, worn out and smelt funny.

Sitting cross legged on the floor I examined my peculiar find. It was red leather bound, weighed at least a ton and had more pages than a bible. Barely visible were these light scratches on the front cover, READ AND DIE. I slowly traced the words with my finger, then completely disregarding the warning label opened the book to an ear marked page.

Last night I had sex with Daniel
Twice

Simultaneously I yelleped, slammed the cover shut and turned around to see if anyone else was in the room. I stuck my head into the hallway just to make sure I was alone then slowly re-opened the sex book to page one.

My name is Marlene M. Remele. My friends call me Molly and my stupid brothers call me pigface. This is my journal.

I giggled silently over pigface because I know what it is like to have brothers. I turned my attention back to the first name. Marlene M. Remele. Hmmm. Slowly it dawned on me Grandma M must stand for Grandma Marlene and this must be her journal and *gasp* she had sex with Daniel, *gasp, gasp* twice! I wanted to know who this Daniel person was and more importantly my 10 year old mind wanted to know more about the, you know…. S word, but I didn’t think my mom or grandma would approve of me reading this journal. It took me .2 seconds to decide. I memorized the location of the book, threw it into the bottom of my backpack and ran downstairs putting on what I think is my most non-criminal face.

Over the next few nights I spent hours hunched on by bed with my flashlight reading the forbidden journal. I read about sex with Daniel, but that wasn’t the best part. In this massive book I read about my grandma’s first kiss, about how badly she wanted to go to school like her brothers, about not having a pretty dress to dance in, about how rough her hands were from picking grapes all day. She wrote a lot about grapes. She despised them; she dreamt about dancing in a country club and drinking wine. “I’ll be the one drinking the grapes, not the one stuck picking them.” She didn’t want to hold hands with Daniel, she was too embarrassed of her “field hands”.

Gradually the entries had more and more of a time lapse between them; sometimes it was 5 years between entries. She got married and started a vineyard of her own. I remember the shock of reading she was going to have a baby and hoped it was a girl. I literally clapped my hands with joy because I knew it was going to be a girl and better yet it was going to be my mom. On the next page my mom was born, and it wasn’t a happy entry.

“Birth of my first child a girl, my very own. I have nothing to give her. I have no pretty dresses and food. I can’t promise her life and I can’t give her cleean hands. I feel hopless because no matter how hard I try I won’t be able to give my child the things I grew up wanting. My child will be a feild worker. Like me, like mom, just like always.”

My Grandma went on to have many more children and do many great things. When my mom was 6 they left the vineyard and left California, driven by my grandma’s desire to find a better life.



Fourth grade, age 10. It was the year Grandma M died from cancer. Cancer is a slow, painful process. She was bedridden and constantly slipping in and out of consciousness for two months. Towards the end my guilty soul forced a confession. Sobbing, I grabbed her hand and explained how I stole the journal, but meant to give it back. And that I read it, but wouldn’t tell Grandpa D about Daniel and that I loved her and that I thought she was the most courageous person in the world. After a few moments of silence I told her something she already knew, Grandma I said, “I’ve never picked a grape in my life, I don’t even think I’ve ever seen a vineyard. And I’m going to go to college and I can’t dance but I have a pretty dress. We made it. You made it.” I can’t be certain she heard me, or she that she understood what I meant, but she was peaceful when she died. I believe it was because she knew she had given her family a better life.

This red, leather journal is one of my most prized possessions. Not only did it rock my world, but it is my world so to speak. It is the physical reminder of the sacrifices my family made for me. As a ten year old my chest swelled with pride for my family name. I will be fighter, a hard worker and a survivor; like my mom, like my grandma, just like always.

Flippant Flamingo #1

Like most little sisters, I was a nosy little pest. My older sister, C, and I were constantly fighting- I wanted to be a part of her group of friends, be cool like her, hang out with all these high school guys that were friends of my brother, B, and thought of her as the little sister. I was just the munchkin that got in the way, or could be coerced to bring them food. Of course, by the time I was in middle school, my brother was in college, and when I was a freshman in high school, they were both attending college. I had spent most of my 14 years before entering high school trying to do exactly two things-- be like my brother and sister, and prove to everyone else I wasn’t like my brother and sister.

The funny thing is, I didn’t really know them. Sure, I lived with them before they left for school, but they were both their own clan that didn’t want me around. I spent more time with mom and dad. More and more my view of those two became caricatures- pictures with a few characteristics highlighted, exaggerated, and the rest slightly blurry memories of good times and bad.

One day in the summer between freshmen and sophomore years in high school, I was cleaning out one of the many random storage drawers in our house, and found a binder and a pile of papers. With nothing else in particular to do that day, I sat down to read. It turned out to be a collection of both of my siblings writings- a few essays B had written throughout his years in school, and almost all of Cs freshmen composition pieces.

The first page scared me. It began with a line about The Boxcar, a hangout place that I had just very recently been allowed into. It told what, to me, was a very intimate story of friends and family and moments in time that had happened in this place that I was excluded from. That one essay, just a page or two long, taught me more about my brother than I had ever thought possible. Suddenly, I was able to look through his eyes at what I had only seen selfishly. I read through paper after paper, about events and places and experiences that had shaped them. I had been there for some of them. Others, I hadn’t even known were happening. I saw all of these moments in new, and almost unbelievable ways.

As I was reading, I could feel the caricatures melting away, being replaced with pictures that were three-dimensional, complex, and almost beyond my understanding. In that day, those four hours of reading, I learned more about my family than I had in the last fourteen years. I had begun to understand not only why they were who they were, but that it was alright for me to define myself as more than not them. That day taught me that I could be myself, and not be afraid of it.

That binder and stack of papers, that book that only my family owns, was the most influential reading I could have ever asked for. It changed not only how I acted and thought and saw the world at that moment, but continues to do so today.

Ferocious Fox #1

I couldn’t have been more than 6 years old when my father first read me Wilson Rawls’ Where the Red Fern Grows. I remember holding Oatmeal, my teddy bear, as we listened to the story of a boy and his dogs. I knew my father and our two dogs had gone hunting and I tried to imagine their adventures being as wonderful as those of Old Dan and Little Ann. My father fueled my enthusiasm telling me that one day I, like Billy, could go hunting with him. Billy had become something of a hero for me and I talked about little else – Until the night we reached the end of the story.

As my father read the mountain lion scene I could tell that Oatmeal was afraid. I burrowed under the comforter to protect him but my father’s voice followed us. By the time the beloved story dogs had died I was in tears. My father tried to explain to me that they had died being good hunting dogs. I cried harder imagining my own dogs dying. My father then tried a more masculine approach, "son, it’s a part of hunting and you want to be a good hunter don’t you?" With that I began wailing. Oatmeal and I ran down the hall to mom.
"Dad is mean," I sniffled as she rubbed my back. "He is going to kill the dogs."
"I am not going to kill Rusty and Jack," my dad offered from the doorway.
"He said that is how dogs are good hunting dogs," I replied disbelieving, "and dad says Rusty and Jack are great hunting dogs."
My mom laughed, "Little Ann and Old Dan died because of an accident. When your dad goes hunting he is very careful and he doesn’t hunt mountain lions."
"He doesn’t?"
"No," she continued, "dad hunts for deer and birds. Can you imagine Bambi hurting Rusty and Jack?"
" I guess not." I looked to Oatmeal for agreement. He seemed convinced.
"Ready to go back to bed now?" My father asked picking up Oatmeal and me.

He tucked us in and for the next three weeks I dreamed of my dogs being eaten by lions.

*** *** ***
Years later my father and I did go hunting. Duck hunting. As I sat crouched in the rushes by the lake watching Rusty and Jack on point I remembered those nights reading Where the Red Fern Grows. The four of us seemed to be in perfect union. I took a deep breath, a shot, and then watched my dogs go bounding after my kill. As they brought the ducks back tails wagging and eyes wide I knew that they loved what we were doing. As my dad pounded me between the shoulders congratulating me on a great first hunt, I felt a bond with him that is impossible to describe to those who haven’t been there. I knelt down to scratch my dogs behind the ears, and realized that this is what a bond between a boy and his dogs was. This is what it felt like to be Billy. This was Where the Red Fern Grows.

Precious Panda #1

Johnny B. Goode

My biggest fear is that I’ll make the same mistakes my father did. His first marriage ended because of his alcoholism and adultery. It’s sad when someone knows their vices and can’t do anything about them…or won’t even try. Something only becomes a mistake if you refuse to correct it, right?

Around the time when my dad started drinking again, I saw “Back to the Future” for the first time. Even then, the concept of ripping-off Libyan terrorists (sooooo 1980’s...Osama is the new Khadafi) for some philanthropic scientific end was appealing to me. I also liked Einstein, Dr. Brown’s dog, who was fed by a mechanical, alarm-triggered can-opener, probably because my mom was the “take your shoes off before you come inside the house” sort of mother and a big slobbering mutt was a fun idea to entertain.

Most of all, though, I wanted to go back in time, and this movie fed my imagination to no end. I envisioned traveling back in time and preventing every bad thing that ever happened to me from occurring. I would stop myself from knocking over the Christmas tree when I was eight, stop my sister from accidentally drowning my turtle when I was seven, and stop my dad from cheating on my mom—or at least convince him to do a better job of hiding it. 99.1 gigawatts, 88 miles-per-hour, the flux-capacitor…

I want to drink, but I’m not going to. I want to cheat on my significant other, but I won’t. I’m going to be a little more Marty McFly and a lot less Biff Tannon.

And I didn’t even need a time machine to figure that out.

Daring Dragonfly #1

I knew the music long before I ever saw the movie. I grew up listening to it as my grandfather and I embarked on another great adventure. And when I finally saw the movie, it changed my life. It was the story of Don Quixote, and it was called “The Man of La Mancha.” It was a story about Miguel de Cervantes, held for the Inquisition, and forced to put on a play by his fellow prisoners. But instead of me telling you the tale, I shall relate it to you as I first heard it, from Cervantes himself:

I shall impersonate a man. His name is Alonso Quijana, a country squire no longer young. Being retired, he has much time for books. He studies them from morn till night and often through the night and morn again, and all he reads oppresses him; fills him with indignation at man's murderous ways toward man. He ponders the problem of how to make better a world where evil brings profit and virtue none at all; … He lays down the melancholy burden of sanity and conceives the strangest project ever imagined - -to become a knight-errant, … No longer will he be plain Alonso Quijana, but a dauntless knight known as Don Quixote de La Mancha.

And with these words, we are transported to a magical world where chivalry is still practiced, and windmills resemble giants. Along with his “squire” Sancho, Don Quixote makes his way through life righting wrongs and doing good as he sees fit. This greatly affected me as a young boy. On the one hand, I was drawn to the lyric from “The Impossible Dream” that the world would be better because one man was willing to stand up and do what is right, to reach the unreachable star and dream the impossible dream. And yet, at the same time, it seemed sad that the only man who would attempt to do right was one who had gone insane. I had always felt that I wanted to do what was right, and this made me wonder if perhaps I might be crazy. And yet, at its core, the story of Don Quixote is an aspirational one. Despite the odds, despite the words of others, this man would do what he believed to be right. And he would never sway from this quest.

And a great many people tried to stop him. Not just his enemies, but also his family. Alonso Quijana’s niece was concerned for his mental health, and so, in an effort to help him, she hired a psychiatrist to try and cure him of his madness. While she thought she was doing what was best for him, she was, in fact, attempting to thwart him in his quest to do good. This made me re-examine the role that friends and family play in our lives. Sometimes, when our friends think they are helping us out, they are really hindering us. It made me realize that just because everyone I knew was against something, or was trying to talk me out of doing something, it wasn’t necessarily wrong. And that doing what everyone else was doing was not necessarily right. It helped shape my independence and willingness to take risks.

Again, Cervantes, playing Quijana, brought to a moment of lucidity by the psychiatrist in the role of the “Knight of Mirrors,” has an answer for those who urge us to always do the sane or right thing:

I've been a soldier and a slave. I've seen my comrades fall in battle or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I've held them in my arms at the final moment. These were men who saw life as it is, yet they died despairing. No glory, no brave last words, only their eyes, filled with confusion, questioning "Why?" When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Too much sanity may be madness. To surrender dreams - -this may be madness; to seek treasure where there is only trash, this may be madness! And maddest of all - -to see life as it is and not as it should be.

This quotation, too, had a profound impact. It acknowledges that sometimes, the world is a crazy place. And when that is the case, trying to fit in without changing things may be the craziest move of all. Never give up your dreams, Cervantes extorts. Here, there is an echo of Robert Kennedy, who said “Some see the world as it is, and ask ‘why?’. I look at the world as it could be, and ask ‘why not?’” Ever since hearing these words, I have strived to see the world as it should be, and to figure out what I can do to make that vision a reality. Because if everyone would do this, then perhaps, just perhaps, we could take the first steps toward making that better world.

I’ve read many books in my life, and I’ve seen many movies. Some have made me laugh, others have made me cry. But this one movie has had the greatest impact. And the conclusion of the story of Don Quixote is just as powerful. Having been broken by the psychiatrist, and returned to the real world, Alonso Quijana lies dying in his home. He is visited by his squire and his lady, who extort him to remember his life as Don Quixote. They succeed and he calls for his armor and sword. But seeing his ill condition, his lady warns him that he is not well. His response:

Not well? What is illness to the body of a knight-errant? What matter wounds? For each time he falls, he shall rise again, and woe to the wicked.

Even on the verge of dying, Don Quixote never gave up. He rose from his bed and prepared to do battle with evil. And while he may have lost his battle, his spirit lived on. The movie ends with Cervantes being called before the Grand Inquisitor, and marching up the stairs to his fate. We never do find out what happens, but we are left with the image of a man who walked head first and chin up to his destiny, unafraid. And this is how I’ve attempted to face the challenges in my life. I still love the movie, and watch it anytime it’s on. I own the soundtrack, and listen to it fairly regularly. And every time I do, I’m reminded to always strive to dream the impossible dream and reach the unreachable star.

Tenacious Tiger #1

The Drips

To my grandfather, I was the "giggler." To my parents, I was the "belly laugher." And to my sister, I was just an opportunity for her to play with a doll that actually pooped its pants.

I've always thought it would be fun if toddlers could write down what is going through their minds at a given moment. I'm sure there's a boat-ton of insight about the world hiding in their fuzzy little domes. But then again, maybe it is just "goo, goo, goo" that they're thinking.

And no doubt if I could still remember those first few years of my life and could actually put them into words, I would have been asking myself "why does Grandpa keep poking that tickly part of my foot?" And "why does my mom make that *wheet wheeeeet* sound when I pull on her nose?" And "why on God's Green Earth does my sister keep yelling *poop, poop, poop* at me?" I still don't understand my sister's fascination with the fecal arts.

But I lived for those whimsical sounds of my mother. We always played this game where I would sit on her lap, but only facing her. Each part of her face made a different noise. A quick tug on her hair was the sound of a tugboat. *Laugh, Laugh, Laugh* A poke in the cheek made a brassy wonking sound. *Laugh, Laugh, Laugh* And for a three-year old, man did I love it. And these were no simple chuckles of mine. To hear my mother describe it, it was the most admired laugh of any child in my hometown, something that could even salvage an evening of arguing between my parents. But then again, admiring her child is her job. I'd be insulted if she told me Brian Studnicki had a better laugh than I did. Hmph, hmph, hmph.

The earliest memory of my childhood, though, centers around a single book. I still have the exact copy, which has survived more than twenty years of moving, divorcing, passing away, re-marrying, more divorcing, and more moving. Johnny Lion's Rubber Boots. After a few dozen months of honing my cunning giggle, it truly blossomed under the direction of Johnny Lion's Rubber Boots, usually when my mother was reading it. It centered around a little lion--his name was Johnny in case you couldn't deduce--that was growing tired of playing inside. He so badly wanted to play outside, but it was raining; raining like cats and dogs, naturally. But I need not tell you any more, the content is not what's important. What was always important was my mom.

Every few pages there was a fun description of the rain:

"Drip, Drip, Drip."

*Laugh, Laugh, Laugh*

...

"Drip, Drip, Drip."

*Giggle, Giggle, Giggle*

...

"Drip, Drip, Drip."

*Laugh, Laugh, Laugh*

...

I was too enthralled with the sounds back then to fully appreciate how lucky I was to be sitting there, with my mom, laughing. You never miss those moments--or rather, the re-telling of those moments--until they're stolen from you in an instant, an instant you wish was some horrible nightmare that you'd wake up from.

I miss you, Mom. Drip, drip, drip.

TKO Question #1

TKO Question #1: [Personal]

Ray Kinsella: By the time I was ten, playing baseball got to be like eating vegetables or taking out the garbage. So when I was 14, I started to refuse. Could you believe that? An American boy refusing to play catch with his father.
Terence Mann: Why 14?
Ray Kinsella: That's when I read "The Boat Rocker" by Terence Mann.

- from Field of Dreams

What was the first movie/book that rocked your world? Why? (Of course, fictional accounts are always welcome to answer the prompt too).

Responses:

Tenacious Tiger
Daring Dragonfly
Precious Panda
Ferocoius Fox
Flippant Flamingo
Giddy Giraffee
Creative Cardinal
Sassy Snake
Daunting Dolphin
Bengin Butterfly
Rowdy Raccoon
Arty Ant
Original Owl
Brainy Badger
Mysterious Monkey
Wordy Woodpecker

Onslaught "Study Guide"

If you're curious about how OO2 went and how contestants answered prompts, then this is the link for you. I've made a Table of Contents with all of the TKOs and the responses in a very easy to navigate format. No more digging thru the archives! Do your homework before OO3 begins in a few hours.

The RULES

The Specifics:
* Game lasts three weeks; it begins June 27th 2005.

* Monday/Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday sometime between 10:00 PM - midnight are the TKO days. At this time a prompt will be posed to stimulate conversation. All contestants should respond to the question. This should be complete before the next voting day.

*Voting days are Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. I will open the online polls at noon these afternoons and close them at 10:00 PM (Central) those evenings. I understand this is a small time slot but you must be on your toes.

*These timings are chosen so you will have two days to post the answer to the TKO day question BEFORE the polling begins.

*The public and the contestants will be given the opportunity to vote for their LEAST FAVORITE bloggers on voting days. For each vote (both public and contestant), the blogger will earn one point. The public will get to vote for their single least favorite blogger while the contestants will vote for a larger amount based on the number that need to be removed from the game. These results will NOT be announced until the game is over.

* If you are a contestant and you do NOT vote, you will gain one point to your total. Therefore, it is to your advantage to vote on each voting day.

* At the end of the week, Sunday after 10:00 PM, I will tally the points for each contestant. The least favorite (those with the most points) will be removed.

* This process will continue for three weeks. This means there will be a total of nine prompts as posting opportunities and nine voting periods.

* The final week all previous contestants and current contestants will rank the remaining six people from favorite (1) to least favorite (6). The audience will be able to pick their favorite blogger which subtracts (1) from their score and their least favorite which adds (1) to their score. The blogger with the lowest score will be the winner.

* Week One: 6 people will be removed Week Two: 8 people will be removed Week Three: 6 people will be remaining; at the end of the week, the winner is announced

* If a contestant fails to post for a prompt, s/he will not be removed from the game automatically. However, s/he will recieve votes from one-half of everyone during the next voting period. For example, if I am going to remove five contestants at the end of the week, during each voting period contestants will vote for their least favorite five. However, if two people did not vote during that TKO question, then contestants will only vote for three and those two people will automatically recieve the vote of half of the contestants (so in the first week, ten). This does not mean you automatically lose, however, because it is the total of all three voting periods per week so do a good job later if you miss a TKO question.

* The schedule will look like this:
Monday June 27th -- TKO Day #1
Wednesday June 29th -- Voting Day begins at noon and closes at 10:00 PM; at 10:00 PM TKO Day #2
Friday July 1st -- Voting Day begins at noon and closes at 10:00 PM; at 10:00 PM TKO Day #3
Sunday July 3rd -- Voting Day begins at noon and closes at 10:00 PM; at 10:00 PM I will announce which contestants with the lowest scores are removed. I will also announce the TKO Day #4 at this time (instead of on Monday) to give the contestants more time.
Wednesday July 6th -- Voting Day begins at noon and closes at 10:00 PM; at 10:00 PM TKO Day #5
ETC ETC ETC

***Additions/Clarifications to the rules***

Voting by contestants will be done by email so I am able to verify which contestants have voted. I will send everyone an email indicating when the polls open so you can respond to that email to vote. Voting by audience will be done by an online poll that prevents duplicate voting.

I will never ever tell anyone who voted for who. So even if you think you've identified a given contestant, don't worry about voting for them if you feel they deserve it because no one will ever know.

All time deadlines are in CENTRAL time zone. This means to be sure to adjust accordingly if need be to be sure that you meet them.

If someone misses posting, they automatically recieve ten votes. However, if they post after the deadline and before the next TKO deadline, I will subtract two points. You are still very much in the game if you miss a post because for example there were ten public votes last time which means that some people could have a lot of votes at this point.

Being unsportsmanlike in the comments/posts to other players is reason for removal from the game.

One of the players quit because of time commitments, so this week only five people will be removed.

The points reset at the end of every week (after people are booted). So if you feel that you are behind after the first week but you stay in, don't worry! It's all cleared.

Lastly, I do not intend for the TKO's to be strictly upheld. This is your game and your writing. However, if you want to judge based on that (or any other standard) that's fine. Just remember, the goal of this game isn't to win per sa but instead encourage creative and interesting writers.