Kittens.

Huffington Post couldn't have gotten cuter. Top Cat Names of 2011----they have PICTURES!!!!

Changing the Status (Quo)--Part 3

Blotted images and dreary light are all I see. I shift my body but feel only soft warmth pressed against my skin. I pull it closer, and roll over to see bright red lights imposing on the delicate space that fills my deep green room. Protecting my eyes, I turn back around to stare blankly at the plain wall. Cleanliness.

My attempts at ignoring reality prove moot. I turn away from my wall and see the red numbers fitting neatly into the canvas of my room. 9:34, they say, although I know they are wrong.

Languidly I sit up, scooting towards the edge of my bed, where my feet touch the rough carpet and my hands reach to my face. I give it a good rub to make sure that I can still feel it, while my brain pieces together whatever I was dreaming. Sinkholes…darkness…heaving…yaks? Whatever the hell it was, I am damn skeptical now that I even exist in my own body.

Sharp whines outside my door let me know that Dolly is already awake—and hungry. I go for the doorknob, but it seems to melt in my hand, and I doubt that I can even turn it.

But it goes easier than expected, and Dolly’s pitiful brown eyes greet mine, earning her a scratch behind the ears. She likes it.

As I descend the stairs, Dolly follows me close behind. I wonder if humans are the only species that subjugate and train their fellow animals, but as I scoop bits of IAMS’ Super-formula for Healthy Coats into a bowl, I wonder whether or not I am the one who is house-broken.

Dolly squeezes in beside me, and her paw-nails tap against the ground as she wags her tail and dances happily across the tile floor, barely letting me set down her dish before she forces me out and eats everything in three gulps. After she is done, she looks at me, asking why there isn’t more.

I shoo her outside, and head back upstairs to put on my work clothes. I abhor uniforms more than anything, but this one has a black-on-black-on-black color scheme that makes me feel more like a Communist, so I wear it out of solidarity.

On my way out, I fill Dolly’s water dish from the sink and let her back inside. If I want to get cigarettes, I don’t have time to eat something meaningful, so I grab a pack of strawberry Pop-tarts and dash out the door. The jelly inside of them has gelatin, which is boiled off of animal bones, which is sacrilegious because I happen to be a vegetarian, but I don’t care much, because I am in a rush.

I step outside into the fog. It is worse than usual, because we usually don’t have fog, but I kinda like it. It’s better than the choking ozone, but I can barely see as I turn onto the main street of our town. Metallic creatures appear in my rear-view mirror, then overtake me and disappear back into the fog. I don’t understand why you would drive so fast in conditions like this.

Ahead, undefined shades of red hang gloomily in the turbid sky, marking the entrance to my most convenient store. Coffee and cigarette time. Peeking over the hill below them, flashing yellows, reds, and blues cut the air. Ooo, I think, this could be exciting.

I merge into the turn lane, but before I can get a closer look, a black-suited police man appears in the middle of the intersection. He puts up his hand, and I stop disappointedly short of my goal. He motions for me to move on down the road. What in the hell? I pull up parallel to him and put on the brakes.

“Hey!” I yell at him, as the dampening cold enters through my receding window.

“Can I help you?” he asks in the authoritative police tone.

“Yes, you can describe to me what’s going on.”

“Sir, there was a major situation at this gas station. All I can say is there were some gun shots, an officer wounded, and hostages taken.”

I don’t really care. I grudgingly thank him and pull on down the road. Thankfully there is another gas station in town, and I will take my business there, instead.

When I get there, I am still disappointed. Cars are lined up around the gas pumps like a heard of corralled mechanical cattle, and I can barely squeeze into a parking space around the back of the store. Some convenience.

I leave my car running as I head into the store. Inside, it’s completely packed. From hillbillies to highballers, they are all lined up from the counter on, past the gummi worms and studded condoms, around the stacked crates of Sprite, and ending at the douches and motor oil. I see the coffee pots behind them all, painted with a blue and yellow cowboy who looks more like a slave driver with his lasso than a legend of the prairie. Coffee doesn’t even grow in the west, I think, but I make my way through the crowd and to the black gold.

            It smells like rotten nuts, but I keep filling my twenty-four-ounce Styrofoam cup out of dire need. I take my place in line by the Boston Baked Beans, and observe my comrades in this charade.

            The man in front of me is dressed modestly, wearing khaki pants, a checkered T-shirt, and brown tennis shoes that look like they may pass for dress shoes. He is holding a Starbucks Double Shot, two granola bars, and some travel tissues. The man in front of him is wearing a dark gray suit and a black tie that looks to be choking his fat crimson neck. He is holding a SmartWater, beef jerky, and Muscle Milk, but I see a small blue box peeking out of his right jacket pocket with the word “Trojan” emblazoned proudly across it. In front of him is a man wearing Carhart Overalls, a Steve Miller T-shirt, and matching camouflage hat and boots. He is buying beer.

            We all inch slowly towards the counter. The well-dressed man checks his rolex, the man in front of me texts, and the redneck picks up a bag of Bugels. My comrades tick off one by one, spiraling off to their own respective realities. When I finally get to the counter, I ask the Indian clerk for the natural cigarettes.

            “Oh, I am sorry, sir, but we are all out of those,” he replies.

            “Shit. Well, just give me the reds, then.”

            “Will that be all?”

            “Yeah, that’s it.”

            I pay by credit card and walk out the door. The coffee tastes better than I thought. I head back around the store to my car, but the space I thought I left it in is empty. I look around drearily, hoping that I parked it somewhere else. But a trip to the front of the store yields no results. I jog around the store three more times, but my little blue Subaru is nowhere amongst the herd. In fact, it's nowhere to be seen at all.

            Oh, shit.

Sonnet 1

“The Climber”

My hands are torn, but they are all I have

Preventing free-fall off this flattened crag.

Below, my feet search hastily for holds

That will not crumble when I weight my toes.

The thought of death sits comically behind

My persevering will to see what lies

Atop the mountain. Cries echo from pain—

My aching brain says: “You are not so sane.”

Though death is but a joke, why should I laugh

At dying rays of sun, for I must sleep

Before the night has come, despite myself.

The climb has taken want from need tonight,

But longer can I not uphold my doubts.

I am strapped in—I surely won’t fall out.

Changing the Status (Quo)--Part 2

My cigarette ember burns bright in the dreary night sky. Menthol smoke fills my lungs with each drag, replacing the space once occupied by alpine air. Sickness, I think.

I often fantasize that I have the ability to heal myself. I think about reaching deep into my lungs and pulling out the tumorous masses charred into the pink flesh. That would heal me. That’s what I need.

I take one last drag and snub the cherry into the ground. I keep the butt in my pocket, because I don’t want to be a dirty smoker. If there is one stereotype I hate more than anything, it is that of the dirty smoker. Just because I keep smoking it does not mean I don’t care about the environment.

Some time ago, I even started smoking the organic cigarettes. You know, the ones with the Indian on the front? It shows that I care way more now about what’s in my tobacco than when I smoked those nasty cowboy killers. Those are really disgusting.

My warm breath crystallizes in the cool air. I sit on my doorstep, legs in my chest and hands folded over my knees. I have to be at work in six hours, but, more importantly, I have to buy more cigarettes. I stand, and blood rushes to my head. My balance falters, so I hold onto the wall to keep myself standing straight.

Lately, I have been an insomniac of sorts. I mean, I sleep well when I do sleep, but I sleep only between the hours of five P.M and one A.M. There is nothing for me to do in the middle of the night, but I prefer the silence. People prove too noisy for me to really deal with them.

I step inside, and Dolly stares blankly at me from the landing. What are you doing, she seems to ask. My dog is usually the only company I have on these late night escapades, but recently she seems to be growing tired of the routine. I counter with a vigorous neck scratching. That ought to confound her.

I sprint up the stairs, knowing that Dolly’s eyes follow me the whole way. I ignore her concern, and crash onto my bed. I ought to get some sleep before I go to work, although I know it is a lost cause. Instead, I pick up The Communist Manifesto and try to make some progress on my latest bedside reading.

Ever since I first learned about Karl Marx, I knew he was right. The bourgeoisie have capitalized on the means of production, depriving the common man of his right to self-sustainability. It’s an evolutionary tract that is destined—destined, I tell you—to end up in the perfect harmony of Communism. Besides, what is so wrong with caring about your fellow man?  People are innately programmed to do good when good is done to them, right?

I wish people would realize that. Unfortunately, they’re all a bunch of uneducated schmucks wrapped up in their silly tin cans that spew toxic gasses into the atmosphere. Society should be torn down, and we humans should return to our natural hunter-gatherer status, yet people walk around as if they think we have it figured out here in America. It’s progress, they say, but what good has progress really done for us? Brought us democracy? We had democracy as chimps, but some other, selfish band of chimps thought they could control us, so they did. And that’s how this giant sinkhole started.

My eyes start drooping, and I lose my page. Thoughts slip away as dreams of sinkholes fill my brain. 

WHY MEAT SCARES ME

Huffington Post Article. This story is a little old, but it's easy to forget that our American-style food production leads to creations like this. Pretty soon, it's going to develop a brain of its own and eat YOU.

Changing the Status (Quo)--Part 1

            It’s three in the morning. My clock says it’s four.

            I thought I could be productive tomorrow, but apparently Facebook is much more important than healthy metabolic functions. Ah, well—since when have I been a health nut?

            Oh, right—since only a year ago.

            The heater hums in quiet response, letting my shame boil over to anger. I pose myself the same question that I’ve asked myself at least a hundred times: “What happened?” It’s almost my mantra now: “What happened?”

            I don’t know what happened, man. Things got way too nutty way too quickly. My psychologist says that I try to control this reality much too firmly, but letting the liquid of life slip through my fingers leaves me very high and very dry.

Admittedly, I held on too tightly for what I was going through. I mean, I expected college to be a big, huge party, which it was, but I also expected studying to kick my ass, which it did. The fault came in thinking that I could sustain both. Of course, leave it up to my crazy ass to figure out some way to manage that.

I was a proud nominee to the Dean’s List in my first semester. I thought that was pretty sweet, and I would have been prouder had I not been too stoned to remember the reception. Although that was what was cool. That was what was hip.

In retrospect, I definitely had the wrong mindset going into things. I spent the whole summer living out of a tent, for goodness sakes, and I expected everyone else to be on the same page. Study hard, but party harder. When you’re as badass as I felt, you forget about others quite easily, until reality smacks you hard in the face.

“The world is here for your advantage, maannn.”

Ha. What a joke.

But I continued to taste the sweetly derelict mirth, and I liked it. I wanted it.

The ball kept on rolling, and it picked up speed through the winter, gathering snow into one giant sphere of planetary proportions. Not even an edge or an end could be seen—an avalanche so wide and so tall that the sky itself was blocked out, and reality was only a choking white mass, unknown of others, and unknown of self.

I stood at the bottom, watching this white ugly mass that crashed down from the mountain, and at once it hit me like a brick wall. But I was stuck—captured in time by white crystals that now formed my concrete cocoon.