Yoga

So you graduated college, and started doing yoga. Skeptical at first, you knew it wasn’t a real sport, and you’ve always respected real sports. As you began practicing, you began to enjoy it, and it came to be one of the most satisfying activities in your life. So you began attributing special value to Yoga, thinking it does something unique, unlike any other physical activity, including the real sports you so respect. You begin believing, with increasing conviction, that Yoga is, overall, better than basketball. All of this, just because you got picked last in pickup games as a kid.

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Obvious to the Extreme

Unlike green glass or brown glass, clear glass lacks pigmentation. When you look through it, things on the other side retain their natural color.

The apartment stays warmer when the windows are closed because open windows allow cold air to pass from outside to inside.

These clear glass bottles can be seen through because they are empty.

It’s 10:46 now because one minute ago, it was 10:45.

It’s pretty quiet in this apartment because there are only two people inside right now.

The empty clear glass bottles are no longer full because earlier we drank all of the liquid inside.

Captain Jenkins Sails Away

“Call me Captain!” Professor Jenkins whispered to himself, adrift in a cloud of weed smoke atop the Buoyancy. The sun had set over the Sea of Cortez.

One of his students called up from the boat’s back deck, “Professor, are you sure this fish isn’t androgynous? I can’t find…”

“Just pierce it two inches in front of the anus, you’ll figure it out!” He chuckled to himself. “On second thought, maybe it is! A sexless species of tuna fish! Fantastic discovery boys, name it after me!”

Indubitably a female, he thought. Had known it the second they reeled it in.

the cons of a junction

If you ask me to do this, I know myself well enough now to know I won’t stop
NOR will I ever stop regretting, hating, loathing myself
OR stop resenting you
FOR making me sacrifice this much again
AND believe me, this is hard because I want to,  I really, really want to
SO know that if I do this for you, we can’t ever go back to what it was before
BUT again, here’s the quandary — we remain at this junction where we’ve been awhile now, where you swore you would not wait any longer
YET here we are.

Building Wonders

When an engineer builds a product, she needs to be completely clear what it does, how it works, and how it fits into the larger picture.  It matters that an engineer is clear and predictable, with as little frivolity as possible, so as to play well with others. On the other hand, art must be exact the opposite. Art that overly-communicates to its audience has no subtlety, no class, no intrigue. 100 people looking at a piece of art should have 100 different interpretations; 100 people looking at an engine should have 1 idea of what it does and how.

What Writing Often Feels Like

Plodding over from my half-erected tent, I asked a group of neighboring campers, “Got a light?”

A robust campfire projected deep oranges onto their faces. “Nah, sorry man,” they said.

I needed my cigarette, and I gazed doubtfully out at the darkening campground. An idea hit me. “What if…” I crouched and offered the end of the cigarette to the fire.

“Don’t burn yourself!” they said, laughing.

A flame flashed out at me, and I recoiled, finger hair singed clean off.

“Here,” one of them said, “what if you put it on this marshmallow stick and lit it that way?”

To be uncertain

In this time where most feel uncertainty,
I, too feel what it is to be uncertain
but I also feel freedom and independence and more agency than I have ever felt before
and with that comes confidence inspired by passion and love
but doesn’t want love because it needs love but needs love because it wants love
if that’s even a distinction that can be made
and that may still be something I’m figuring out
but I’m okay with that, too
even though others hint to the otherwise.
To be uncertain is something I’ve never been okay with
Until now.

Royal Child

The Royal Couple is pregnant. What a joyous day. Endowed with elegance and grace from birth, The Regal Child will be elevated such that his light may shine on all. His fame, guaranteed from the moment of conception, and nurtured by the adoring populace, will be turned back over to them. He will become the image which society projects onto Him, and thus He will bear exactly that which the people value and hunger for. Delighted are the people, chomping at the bit to consume consume consume The Child. We have sown the seeds and soon we reap The Harvest.