Groundhog Sees People Seeing Him Trying to See His Shadow, Gets Scared

In a fatal turn of events (at the very least for the entire aboveground groundhog community and possibly for the entire underground culture of groundhog enthusiasts), the once popular bullet-shaped creature of phur saw someone watching him watch his shadow. To the animal, already drowning in a dark emotional whirlpool of uncertainty, this all but guarantees a future full of brusque personal encounters and hard bargains.

Experts surmise that in order to ensure the arrival of a spring season there may soon be an onslaught of unscientific psychological mind games played with the mindless pillar of fear known as Punxsutawney Phil. Possibilities include: a national pronouncement of shadow slaughter, a bouquet of pheromone-doused dandelions (with apology note attached), or a cigar box filled with false teeth. Apparently, such creatures love false teeth.

Witnesses of the event noted that Phil seemed much more aware of his surroundings this year. As opposed to his usual behavior of exhibiting an unimpressive lack of awareness regarding anything but his cast shadow (or lack thereof), Phil stared into the crowd, locking eyes with at least two innocent paparazzi. When Phil spotted a video camera, it took his entire store of mental acuity to deduce that the cord extending from the recorder fed into a nearby van with attached satellite dish, meaning the event was being shown live to the world at large. Not accustomed to such heavy mental lifting, Phil wiped his shaking paw across his brow, took an unsteady step toward his hole, and bit his lower lip. Video shows that Phil either fainted backward into his adobe abode, or feigned the fall to be dramatic. High school friends are strongly convinced of the latter.

Where do we go from here? Despite ruminations of an overhaul of the entire season forecasting system, most agree that the current administration will adopt a wait-and-see strategy. Some are in support of adopting an actual baby groundhog, seeing an opportunity to expand (or contract, depending on the point of view) the public’s iris, shining more light on the evolutionary vitality of the dirt-running species and shedding less light on their shadows. In any event, one thing is certain; Phil has undoubtedly pulled out his collection of cutting-wrist 90’s music and is preparing for a season of change.

Just Tell Me Where... and Win

I will be in Montana by this time tomorrow.

I never thought I would be able to make it. Not after introducing my lower back to the highest peaks of a waist-height wall. My fall from grace.

Not after having the thought: I should never have been gay Clark Kent for Halloween as I crawled through the empty halls of my workplace, unable to stand. Not after trying to breakdance under a heavy blanket on a dirty floor, which turned into a broken dance when my back re-snapped. Not after making fun of Brokeback Mountain by putting my best friend’s face over Heath Ledger’s.

Do I deserve this vacation? No. Will I live? Without a doubtfire, the goal will be to extinguish myself from the pack. Be not surprised, scared, or regretful if my life ends this week. I have loved you all once, and that is enough for me.

Tasty Jamuary

Please bear my patience in a snapped steel mindtrap, I am working on my railroad tracks right now. I'm installing expensive metals and quick-switch interoperability so that, upon completion, I can breeze through life's problems at lightrail speed. I am positioning myself to complete most, if not all, of the following in the next 12 months:

1. Buy a house, or perhaps a home
2. Become and expert in logical argument
3. Get lean, so lean
4. Finish writing a book
5. Write a short film... if it is good, write a long film
6. Act in at least two short films (there is a filming group in Chapel Hill that I am a member of)
7. Get a passport
8. Get a poem published
9. Start a business: currently in the process of creating a Limited Liability Corporation with my friends
10. Perfect the Irish accent (voted sexiest accent of the world in 2008)
11. Wake up at 6:30 every day
12. Ability to lower pulse 15 bpm on command
13. Learn Vovinam (one of my friend's bosses is teaching us Vietnamese marshal arts)
14. Become a body language expert
15. Become a consistent speed reader
16. Avoid injury: this will be my greatest challenge

At the end of the month, I am going to San Jose to work for a week, and then to Montana to break every bone in my body for a week.

You want poetry? Well, I'm not the best, but I'm more than less. Here's one I wrote a few years ago, for no reason other than to make noise.

Polite Ticks

say a line is drawn between points in the night

say it starts at conception and aborts to the right

for the sake of forsaking let's spark us a Plame

to cast light on the growing miasma of shame

the issues! the issues! the waterlogged tissues!

congregations of blood scream of congressional misuse

my wires feel tapped and my country feels dead

i'll end up in jail for the books that i've read

our borders suck inward a clash of ideals

our hardworking hombres wet their backs in our fields

so let's send them back home - the American way,

or they could help torture avocados in Guacamole Bay.

even better, let's shower love on our Death Rose

You killed four children? Well that’s the way life woes

No! I killed four children, they were all in my womb!

a cut here a cut there, now there is more room!

we'll cut trees and raze taxes!

we'll plant plants and raise taxes!

what a loopy debate,

I hate red and blue states,

I elect not to bake

in this world we create.

here's my primary view:

we're hierarchically skewed,

Wow, I Can Get Political Too.

Backstabbing

“How do you feel on windy days?” The lady with the needles stood over me like an amateur tower. She picked a tiny knife from a fistful of plenty and tossed it into my shoulder skin, aiming for tightly bunched freckle patch.

“Depends on the wind speed, air temperature, and cloud scatter patterns,” I answered. This formless response, of course, was rewarded with a spike to the back. She proceeded to grill me with questions of a similar spice, and I continued to respond with answers of a complimentary flavor. I originally scheduled the visit to deal with a numb shoulder, the end harvest to a proudly planted field of means: two dislocations and a handful of throwdowns. She suggested acupuncture and I couldn’t say no to a lady with a wall-sized map of the circulatory system and a head full of sneaky questions.

Her final question for me was the only one that caught me in surprise. “What’s your co-pay?” After answering, the question repeated and reverberated through my braincage until I finally decided to tell Zhang it! about the entire event. I thought getting his opinion on the ancient medical practice would be as quick as getting Chinese takeout. Instead, since then, anytime one or more Carbamas gets detonated, Zhang it! will jump on my back and scream “WHAT’S YOUR CO-PAY?!” It can be quite shocking, but is not nearly as much as when she attached electricity to the needles.

As an act of solidarity to all that is homegrown and familial, I joined my family in Kentucky to watch my sister dominate her last collegiate game on the volleyball court. On the way home, chilled and confused by the beasts of West Virginia after a spectacle at a gas station, I smashed my fist into a window.

I was thinking of nothing but escape. While in the store buying cranberry juice after refueling, I felt the frustration of a passenger on a foreign-facing flight. I had to wait as a family of three, led fearlessly by their matriarch, placed orders for myriad lottery tickets and candy bars. It was clear that either no thoughts on ordering were formed prior to their approaching the counter or that all preemptive planning was erased by an electrosalivic pulse upon smelling chocolate. An exhaustive three minutes later, a dozen candy bars were stacked near the register and a small mountain of lottery tickets was clutched in their leader’s good hand.

The entire transaction was (insert word for the opposite for catalyzed) by the family’s ordering process: either the husband or daughter would ask the mom if what they desired was appropriate, and then the mom would nod and relay the wishes to the store clerk. The clerk could easily hear everything, but would stand at inaction until the mom confirmed the order. Then the father/daughter would reconsider, and take back the order. It was like an underwater scene shot with a radioactive camera directed by a blind waffle.

The scene was replaying in my mind as I rolled up to a toll station on a mountain highway. I had my two dollars in hand and my music player on pause. I was even mentally prepared to smile and say “Good day.” I stopped, turned my head, and noted the beckoning palm and the toothless wonder that wanted my toll. I wanted badly to give her my money and speed away. I wound up and smashed my knuckles straight into the driver’s side window. Her lips tried to capture her surprise, but failed, presumably because her teeth were on strike. My shocked hand slid down the window like an unfastened scoop of expensive window dressing. I elbowed the power window, and handed her the money with my bad hand. I miss the people there. I mean, I missed the people there; I only saw creatures.

Dreams that Pretend to Come True

I have been very busy: travelling home for the holidays, returning hastily bought items, and doing some authoring activities. I am hoping to come out with a book that binds sometime in 2010. If sales exceed 40 copies, I will celebrate by sacrificing my audacity to hope. You have my word. I came across an old essay from high school, in which I was asked to do causal analysis. The essay in no way met the requirements, is poorly written, and never edited. It is slightly entertaining, and I am not able to put up a new post, so this will buy me at least 24 hours, I'm hoping, to get a real post written.

_________________________________________________________

Two beads of Poseidon's favorite soldiers air dive in a kitchen in Birmingham, Alabama. Hitting the stainless steel with the plooshing sounds we have all come to know and love, they regret little and take back nothing. Friends since the early afternoon, they had chatted about life goals while coalescing on the sink faucet. “Water polo at Hydro Jen's house tomorrow, four or so, bring a friend and a good attitude,” drips drop number one, “there are no rules save for a Ph between six and eight.”

“I’m a liquid asset,” quips the second droplet whilst maintaining a double flop move. The two globules of H2O slide and slip to the edge of the chasm and peer down for only an instant before keeling headlong into the drain.

Paul Simonson, son of Simon, wakes up from his post-lunch napping to the sound of dripping water. The sink has been leaking periodically for the last week, and he makes a mental note to check it as soon as he gets back from the bookstore. He decides that since he has woken up twenty minutes ahead of schedule, he will check his e-mail. Scanning through the latest junk in his Inbox, he spots a message offering him any and all men to his liking. Highlight. Delete. The next message sports an enticing content line promising a chance of maybe being in a drawing for an almost free Nascar lunch box. Clicking the link, (who wouldn't,) Paul is assaulted with images of all of his favorite drivers hauling around snazzy lunch boxes with their names on the sides. At the bottom of the page, he spots some text telling him to call immediately. Paul dials with shaking fingers, Thad Thyroid bailing adrenaline as fast as he can from his boat into Blood Stream. An automated voice at the other end of the line tells him that his prize is waiting for him at the downtown office. Paul tells the voice to let the prize know he is coming.

Half an hour later, lunch box in hand and happy smile on his face, Paul weaves a path down the sidewalk. He pauses to stare at his beautiful new object in the reflection of a store window. Squinting his eyes tightly, he can just make out the sexy figure of Earnhardt II plastered to the side. What a steal! He is so cool now; he just knows he will be able to get that raise at work. Caught up in elation, he fails to notice the black S-Class Mercedes pull up to the curb beside him. The driver's door opens, and all of the people on the other side of the street gasp and shrink as far back into the mid-afternoon shadows as allowable. A blue jay screeches and sails back up to her nest, covering her chicks' beady eyes. Paul is shaken out of his jubilation by the commotion, and turns toward the woman he has dreamed of his entire life, Dale Earnhardt Jr. A quirky southern drawl comes from behind obsidian sunglasses, “Look ya'll, a fan!”

Recovering quickly from his initial shock, Paul extends a shaking hand. In the myopic world of the sweaty-eyed, no race car driver has ever looked so good. Dale pulls a hanky and dabs the sweat from his biggest admirer's eyes.

“I can see how much of an impact I have had on your life. Here, take an autographed pencil,” states Dale, haughty hottie that his is.

“Would you be so kind?” inquires Paul. “You don't know how much of an honor this is to me. First I get your lunch box, now I meet you in person.”

Dale motions Paul closer, slips the pencil out of his pocket and into Paul's palm, and whispers into his ear, “I want to be your manager.” Paul murmurs in acceptance, and Dale adds that it would take too much money to involve other people, and suggests he and Paul do it themselves. Dale buys Paul the one thing every racer must have: a fire-proof jumpsuit.

From that point on they do everything together; they bathe with each other in the ocean, they make pottery, they hopscotch, they knit, and they make fun of those less fortunate. Paul frequents the amateur Nascar circuit and before long is invited to race in the “pros.” He and Dale discuss racing with each other over take-out sushi and each promises to let the other win. This inevitably causes trouble on the racetrack. Their friendship struggles, and before long, breaks apart, the final straw being when each looks accusatorily at the other one night after both fail to remember to bring home Bacon, their borderless collie.

To some extent, we live our lives in expectation that one day our wildest dreams will come true; that we will all be the Queen of England, or the King of the Court. Paul's dream was to be a Nascar driver, but in the end, what did he gain? Because Paul awoke twenty minutes earlier than was fated, his dream came true. At any given moment we are a lucky roll of the dice or drip of a droplet away from our dreams. Just remember that if you have a chance to fulfill yours, take it and don't share the glory with pussies like Dale Earnhardt Jr. Sleep lightly, and don’t trust racers.

Intuitive Swooping

It isn’t often that you hear quotes as mind-waffling as the following: “The oldest car my family has ever owned is a 2001.” When you do, it is crucial to dive deeper into the psyche of the speaker in order to find out what normally plastic parts of the brain have been replaced with inert Moon Ice.

I thought out all possible responses, discarded a few inappropriate for work, and said to Man U., “If I accept your statement as true, Man U., then you are either from the future or you rented cars prior to 2001. Can I trust you?”

Man U. was not phased. He phrased, “Always trust the Indian kid because he doesn’t have an agenda.”

“Man U., what does that mean?” I'm baffled, nearly buffaloed.

“When is whenever?” He slips a question inside an answer inside a calamitous lifestyle. Some nuts you can’t crack. I left the conversation, about the 1000^th that we’ve had about him wanting me to buy a new car, as confused as a preschooler’s essay on what an essay is.

Fully convinced that my nut cracking abilities had “run away” like a feeble and diseased dog that could barely move the day before, I returned to my desk for a snack. Pouring the last of my shelled sunflower nuts into my hand, I heard from the next cubicle “You’re killin’ those nuts, Wes. Always munchin’ on something... usually nuts.”

I flashed back to 9^th grade basketball: While the rest of the team was gathered around the coach going over the weekly gameplan, I was shooting three’s like a mathematical heroin addict. The ball caromed behind a stool. Sitting beside the ball, crouched patiently, waiting, an empty wrapper with doughnut crumbs inside. I kicked at it, and the crumbs sang to me. I picked up the package, careful not to shake the crumbs, and inspected the tiny pieces of yellowcake with chocolate frosting. It radiated benevolence. I lifted it higher, crinkling the wrapper, tilting the open end toward me. From the other side of the court, a coach, “What the hell, Wes? Always munchin’ on something…” I threw the offending crumbs down my throat, and then drowned a basket from downtown. Don’t nobody tell an addict when not to shoot.

I told my cube mate that if he ever needed snacks, he knew where to turn, or who's "drawers to inspect". Can I possibly interact with another human with making some awkward sexual reference? Nope.

I’ve been listening to Irish talk shows. I downloaded about two hours worth of Irish commentary to my mp3 player. My goal is to have the sexiest accent of any American born male by January 1^st, 2010. I already had a pretty decent Irish accent in my repertoire, but I always aim to be the best. Feel free to request a phone call or a whispered “sweet nothing” if you want me to practice my skills on you. Everything in moderation… except modulation.

Whoa, is that Wes on January 1^st, 2010?

6-pack and I went for a long walk last weekend, mostly to poke coals in Chapel Hill that needed poking. We call it swooping. We walk with rhythm and then purpose for an undefined period of time, and then we “swoop” across the street and demand nothing. If a rolling stone gathers no moss, a perfect swoop leaves no trees (or trace). Our goal is to enter and exit before we enter. While we were mid-swoop, we ran into a co-worker’s girlfriend on the street. She invited us out with her friends. I never meant to make her cry.

Toward the end of the night, while the bartender was waging war on the credit card machine (yelling “If I swipe too hard it will SNAP!!!”), I started to give her relationship advice. She talked about how her and our co-worker were “taking a break,” and I told her I was so good at taking breaks that it was on my unofficial resume. I started to give her relationship advice; it ended with tears. Somewhere in the middle, I think I convinced her of love’s existential potential. Even as she wiped away her tears, her friend pulled me aside and said my advice was sound, and exactly what she needed to hear. Potential career change?

Last night, in a pre-sleep moment of mental lucidity, I figured myself out. I have been trying to find a pattern of times in my life when I have performed at my best; impressed even myself (hard to do). I discovered this: I thrive on chaos. The fewer defined variables, the quicker I solve. This is counter-intuitive to my usual thinking, which is to shoot last and ask questions never. I will be putting this discovery to personal scientific and judicial review.

Here is gay Clark Kent: