Who knew knowing was a crime?

First let's get the pupdates out of the way.

Allow me to introduce Kona and Mosey, two low-ground bots featuring the latest and greatest in hot-bark technology, wire-chew interoperability, and "hit the ground running" excrement exorcists. In fact, I'm fairly sure their favorite song is Deuces and their favorite snack would be a pinecone plugged into an electrical outlet.

Kona is a walking ball of brown energy. Mosey is a moseying sack of ambivalence, unsure about all things kinetic but damn sure that cuddling makes the world go 'round. By the way, they're sisters from different misters, chicks from different... dads. Well, you get what I mean.

Mosey: short for Moses or Mozambique

Kona: short for long in the tooth

Speaking of sisters, my sis moved down to join my house in our pursuit of all things future. We've bounced a few volleyballs around, breaking hearts and aspirations in the process. She has adopted the role of official dog trainer. The pups can now sit, lay down, moonwalk, and levitate.

My goal for this blog for this year is to "turn myself insight out." As my focus this year is brain health, I aim to add novelty to my life by never saying no (except to hugs) and pushing my learning to uncomfortable levels by deep-diving different topics every week. Currently myself and a roommate are learning about the female brain. We are making a presentation on the topic to our friends; you will either get a recording of the event or I will recount in words.

On that note, we have a new roommate from Michigan. He is someone else's childhood friend, but that doesn't mean we can't get along.

My employer may have recently made a huge mistake: my team has given me the go-ahead to create a blog that is 50% support information, 25% humor, and 25% untapped Wesley King thoughts. Talk about pushing my comfort levels to new lows... I don't know how long I can sustain the appearance of "societally well-adjusted employee" at work when I'm publishing articles encouraging the dismissal of all workers that have snakes as pets.

The Food Chain around our House

I want to tell you a story of how a food chain forms. The food chain might not want that story told, but it isn't its place to tell us what to say. That's right food chain, you just going on linking things together and leave the writing to me.

Food chains are common amongst people living within one life click from a resolved state. They are a species all their own. Born unresolved, food chains seek out people seeking out mini-moments of clarity in which life preceding this moment is labeled rubbish, and what is to follow is considered wholly unrelated to what came before. What once was found is now lost, or thrown out with the weekly recycling. Food chains are parasites that cause their hosts to rename themselves even as they remain themselves even as they redefine themselves.

Food chains are irrational cyclists, riding stationary bikes in basements and operating motorcycles on misinformation highways. They like to wrap their bodies in pillows of self-delusion while forgetting to protect their helmets by using their heads. Right now there is a food chain viced tightly around my house.

It peeks in the windows, making sure that we are saying the right things and acting the right actions. It grows exponentially as bodies enter the room, and is most vulnerable when there is only one, alone. Where people have made promises to each other, food chains flourish.  It’s as if each person owns a link. Some were forged with strong resolve and others out of necessity, but all exist.

Whereas natural food chains have a direction – up, down, and “get in my mouth, because I’m a sideways shark” – artificially formed chains exist in a circle. A circle presents certain weaknesses, but one of its main strengths is that it doesn’t move without consensus or at least lack of resistance to the leading opinion.

Somehow, thankfully, my house inherited a benign food chain. Just by looking each other in the eye and saying “I want my link to touch your link” we have accomplished something: momentum. And, even though it is just a derivative of our goal, which is excellence in fitness, it is entirely more powerful. Fitness is a nebulous finish line, always floating forward into the distance. But momentum is fun, it is out of control, and it is flexible. Most importantly, it is social, so I don’t mind ducking under the food chain as I leave the house every morning and come home at night. As far as I’m concerned, it is welcome to hangout for as long as it wants.

Conversations to Judge By:

I went to Whole Foods today. Check out this grocery list.
Oh, you guys went shopping? I’ll cook!
Somebody’s cooking? Guess I’ll go for a quick run and think about what we can eat tomorrow.
I saw a guy eating a tomorrow sandwich at the gym today. He was biting his tongue, benching way more than the bar, and thinking about how much better he will look tomorrow.

Hey Trevor, are you a runner?
Uh, I don’t ever really walk anywhere.
You wok like a Chinese saucepan.
That was some excellent swai sauce.

And so on and so forth, culminating in a three-day period in which "swai" was a buzzword and synonymous with everything dirty. As a house, we've lost 15 pounds, and that is with one of the four of us trying to gain weight. If you are part of a malignant food chain, rust as much as you can, get some chain cutters, and start cutting yourself. Don't worry, it will only hurt for a few weeks.

The Year is Coming!

What the hell happened to 2010? I remember 2010 like it was just the other day – drafting 100 unique New Year’s texts to everyone in my phone for disbursal come 2009’s midnight. The resulting cascade of responses to my texts did wonders in kicking off last year.

Now it’s 20!! and it’s time to figure out where I mucked up last year, what I can't learn from it, and by the way, who can I contact to get a drink in this damn place?

Don’t Get Short with Me!

After deciding I wanted to get a poem published, I went online to play the role of predator. On the hunt for a place to display my writing, I went to Craigslist to take advantage of somebody, because that’s what Craigslist was created for. I quickly found a community that not only liked my poem but paid to use it. Very nice, I thought, I should do this more often. I then proceeded to add nothing more to the realm of poetry for the rest of the year.

Instead, I kept a lazy eye on the “Writing gigs” part of Craigslist, and was able to land a stint making fun of Dead Celebrities and their ridiculous propensity to aggrandize their real estate needs and overshoot the idea of “want”. That landed me some more scratch/cashflow, bringing the year’s total to $200. I am hoping to multiply that tenfold in 20!!. I've already submitted a short story for a national competition that will equal that tenfold goal if it slips through the cracks into first place. Keep your panties crossed.

Soccer and Volleyball skills

I’ve got ‘em, and you can’t have ‘em. I set a goal with Zhang it! for our team of two to become the best sand volleyball doubles team in our county. While we definitely aren’t – we had a pretty paltry record in the men’s summer league – we are well respected on the circuit as up-and-coming, piss-and-vinegar types. When Zhang it! steps onto the court, the opponents feel slow and the sand shivers. When I step onto the court, Zhang it! feels slow, my thighs quiver, and the Sun hits the snooze button.

Zhang it!: Pre-game Volleyball Warmup

I play a lot of soccer on some very good teams. This is not necessarily because I play at an elite level, but because 6-pack (Michigan Mike) is an elite goalie and I am his +1. Because I am playing with good people against great people, I have gotten much better quite quickly and fancy myself a defensive presence. What that means is up to interpretation.

Act a Fool

I helped write and then acted in a short film that represented Cisco’s North Carolina campus in a company-wide film competition for my organization (Information Technology.) We created four versions, from vanilla to X-rated, and were able to borrow the campus film studio to record as if we were important. It was quite an experience to see myself onscreen when they showed the video to our campus, especially since afterword people came up to me squinting in what I took as both diss and approval. While I’m not yet the face of Cisco, I’m definitely some lesser glanced at body part.

“Your body is speaking Spanish to me”

I lackadaisically pursued body language knowledge this last year. I took a training course at work on Communication that had a section on non-verbals and I am reading a collection of words published by a former FBI body language expert. I’ve made prolonged eye contact with several people throughout the year, but the jury is still out on how badly I creeped them out. I’ve discovered the easiest way to instantly offend someone is to tell them they have the body language of a walking stick.

You know what you are? A Homowner

Being 6-pack’s +1 has escalated my emasculation to the point of no return. Granted, when buying a house with another male, questions are sure to arise. What are your intentions with this man? Where do you get off? Who’s your interior decorator? Here’s how we answered those questions: Our intentions are intentional, we would like to buy this pool and if the house comes with it… so be it. We get off most days between 5 and 6 PM Eastern, when we take the bus we get off whenever the bus driver isn’t looking, and when we engage in interstellar spaceflight we get off when the aliens tell us to get off. And our interior decoration is determined by Science with the undying support of our parent’s favorite jeans.

We made it through the entire house purchase process without any colorful commentary. Then, when we got a check from the old homeowners to fix a few small issues, they made the check out to 6-pack and wife: Wesley King. 2010 was the year of the homowner and the year my gender was tossed into a blender and Frappéd like my ankles when I wear stilettos. 

I will next be posting my goals for 20!!, one of which is to help others complete theirs, so holla at me if you want my support!

Parents Met. Combined Photos. Thought I would be Cute so they Googled "How to Make a Baby."

So I was at this party the other month when some lightweight vegan started getting perky off of too much tomato juice and asked the host if they could get everyone to sit down and share their conception stories. I quickly saw two ways out; tell a crafty lie or play mute. When the turn came to share the events of my conception, things got out of hand. I tried to lie and play mute, and many party-goers inconceivably walked out.

To start things off I held out my hands for something to draw on. I was handed a baby and a laser pointer. So, as I practiced laser exfoliating the baby’s belly with stirring red light, I conceived of a lie. I figured the lie would go like this; parents meet, combine their headshots, see that I will be adorable, Google how to make a baby, then make a baby.

There were several reasons this was completely false and unbelievable to me, but I figured they wouldn’t catch on. How could they know that my parents never “met” because they are actually fraternal twins, that they couldn’t combine their headshots because their heads are already attached, that they couldn’t "see" I was going to be adorable because they are both partially blind in their shared eye, and that they can’t Google anything because they only trust Baidu, the Chinese search engine?

To convey to the attendees that the first part of my story was that my Parents Met, I drew some sloppy stick figures holding hands. I should probably point out here that I can’t draw and have no concept of head-to-body ratio, so the general consensus derived from my drawing was “Ah, his parents were aliens.” I couldn’t dissuade them. Hell, I couldn’t even speak… so I moved on.

Next my parents Combined Photos and fell in love with my potential face. To convey this touching non-reality, I drew a picture of two faces smashing together with DNA strands exploding in every direction. Their only guess was “aliens combining DNA.” I was starting to get a weird crowd from the vibe. I decided to stay away from stick figures.

In my flustered state I predicted that the furthest possible thing from a stick figure would be an Emporer penguin. To show everyone that my parents Thought I would be Cute enough to bother Googling what sex was, I drew a penguin holding a headshot in one flipper and a hatching egg in the other.

“Aliens implanted the combined DNA in a penguin egg!” shouted Sigourney Weaver. 

I should have known she was behind this messy chalk outline of Pictionary murder. She was in Aliens and Avatar and she voiced over the American version of Planet Earth. She had been planting guesses the entire game, I never even had a conceivable chance of winning.

Partially because I wanted to leave but more because I wanted to hear Sigourney’s conception story, I decided to wrap up my own struggling scenario. To show that my parents Googled “How to make a Baby” I drew a comfortable looking twin bed with a computer on it, and waited. I waited impatiently for a good answer. There were many murmurings and then:

“A desk?! Is that a desk?” 

Either some wise guy in the back was completely unable to interpret what a good Serta looks like or Sigourney was off her alien kick and on to solid oak idiocy. I’d had enough. I took myself off Mute.

“A desk? A desk!!? No, it isn’t a desk. My dad HATES desks. Why? Because my dad was RAPED on a desk. BY MY MOM. And THAT’S how I was CONCEIVED!” To add insult and salt to the phrases I had bulleted into Sigourney’s hanging jaw, I told everyone that I would MUCH rather have a British man narrating my waterfall chase scenes then some washed up, crack-addled poor man’s version of Susan Sarandon. Sig looked as if she had been slapped around by an otherworldy being.

When I was done with my tirade, I handed her my keys and said, “I don’t feel like driving… can you take me home Mom?”

"How did he get three people?"

When a coworker asked me if I was shooting up people again... I wondered how he knew I had just looked at my Xbox and considered playing Halo over my lunch break. I sent him a cryptic response and waited to hear how he knew my inner thoughts so well. He responded with a link to a story in the local news and told me to Google the address.

Durham County homeowner shoots three break-in suspects

I need a new hero in my life and since some fancy homeowner is sitting around my county somewhere saving his own ass and possessions by firing a sawed-off shotgun from his La-Z-Boy, I thought I would check it out. Since possession of a "Get the hell off my lawn" attitude isn't exactly illegal, I knew this was a one way avenue I could drive down with my eyes closed. Turns out I wouldn't need to drive that far.

I do believe this is the first time in my life I've lived only a few houses down from a crime scene tape party that the Police were invited too. By the way WRAL, I was working from home all day and I was wearing my nice pants in case you wanted to do a full body interview. Top notch reporting.

Check out the names: Gary Brady Sr. must be a proud papa.

Dried Grapes

There is a zaggy road, forceful in its turns, ill-planned, that runs through Gum County and dumps out onto the kind of highway one would highlight with white signage. At the intersection, where one must decide on turning one way or the other - or just plowing into the barbed wire fence straight ahead - sits Donald Raisin.

                You could hardly call him a boy. But since no subset of women, men, peers, or queers would call him a man or a child, we can settle on boy. I guess you could call him a boy. His lower arms, glistening in the sun as he sits cross-legged juggling the chain of his 10-speed, are not vastly smaller than his upper arms. That is not to say either are entirely impressive specimens.

If you want impressive, and I’m sure you do, look closer at his eyes. The intensity is impressive. There, split diametrically by his skinny nose, flint and focus are poured together and laminated onto shining quarters, waiting to be spent.

Scattered across the path of his past are husks of former relationships. Without exception eviscerated, transparent and examinable, were anyone interested in examination. Donald slips his teeth over his lower lip without thinking. Thinking he must fix the bike to get home to get fed, he doesn’t notice the long shadow move across the passing lane behind him. Husks rustle, but Donald is too focused to allow osmosis of this information to infiltrate the forefront of his conscious thoughts.

Donald considers the issue at hand. Seven miles between himself and home. Jammed between points A and B, clumps of bike chain and oily, sequenced links. Donald moves methodically through the issue, placing force on the chain’s catch with his right hand and culling the extra chain into a manageable position with his left. Like a mechanic playing an oboe in the bassment with a cleft lip, Donald understands the importance of moving quickly through time.

Finally, all is in place. The bike stands up, as does Donald, and the shadow has taken to the sagebrush in the adjacent ditch. This is the essential precipice of the afternoon; bike, boy, shadow, enstanced and in transition between almost and ready. Donald is suddenly gone, still standing but no longer there, remembering with unequivocal alacrity the first time he ever felt fear. He is suddenly sure he needs to get home. Pumping the pedals, he flies past the Gum County sign, sure that he needs to get the hell home before Shane does.