Paleo, Bro

You’ve heard of it, your mom is on it, and your Grandma dated the caveman who started it. The Paleo Diet was the #1 most Googled diet of 2013. On it, you can’t eat processed foods, dairy, or anything that proliferated after the Agricultural era. That means no grains, beans, or froyo bro. What you can eat, however, is shit-tons of animal flesh, nuts, and healthy fats.

It’s often called the “Caveman Diet.” Cavemen didn’t use quotes, so I’ll put those away for a few sentences. Proponents of Paleo point out that it forces you to pay attention to what you’re eating and that it lowers your blood sugar and you become more sensitive to insulin. Meaning that if you’re on the diet, the next time insulin makes fun of your weight you’re apt to over-react and scream, “Quit living in the past, Insulin!”

Since we all know future is all that matters, I think we should imagine what the world will be if this Paleo trend keeps up:

Moms will start sending their kids recipes via smoke signal. 

The diet becomes so expensive it forces people to start hunting and gathering for their food. Ugh. 

Guys, you will be able to use the excuse that it isn’t lipstick on your collar, it’s lamb’s blood. What you don’t have to tell her is that lamb’s blood was someone else’s lipstick. 

The new way to give up on your life in your teen years is to marry your high-school wheat heart. 

Popular Paleo diets will keep getting more and more ridiculous, going further back into the past. The most popular diet of 2014: the “Natural Selection” Diet. 2015: the “Fish out of Water” Diet. 2016: the “Trilobite, you’ll like it” Diet

I hate calling it the Paleo Diet. If we’re going to be completely accurate, it should be called the “Diet Consisting of Foods that were Available to our Ancestors that didn’t Kill said Ancestors when Consumed.” Otherwise known as “Real Human Food.”

So yeah, I eat Paleo.

Neature

“Hey!”

I shout at the mountains

The peaks between the air

Settle down into a swing I do

Drowse into a bite of crunch I do

And gaze lazy unto myself

Weak one alone

Kinda gratisfying

Moments looped to firebugs

Light dusting

I say “colour!”

I am an intern at jesus camp

A two time jesuit tournament champ

A creak beneath your foot

I know you see me on your screen

Baited breathless painted seine

WTFuckopolis 2013

Salamanders draw lines

in the sand

Devotion time

Today's Dance

today's dance

accompanies apricot grenades

temple pounds within &

half massed we remember

cotton falling from the graceless sky

spring seasoned with gravel

scattered grey sluices

a delta

a mounted rose

a moment headed my way

from some deep pit of time

survey the demarcated tumeric

the best buy dates

treasured expiry

no matter

existing today

should displace love

no matter

listen as I tell you

we feel felt feeling

in that butterscotch wainscoting

LSD DSL connection

key tone bodies

don't sit just wait

limned by dust

until the saints come marching

nothing can match that fury

From the Hipster

There’s something magical about approaching the world on two clumsy, bi-racial feet. One sock is black, the other white. Each coddles the hair near the top of my shins below my knees. I have just walked out of a feature film on a Monday and the sun is berating me a 5 out of 5. I Yelp.

I check-in on the group I have come with. They are waiting by the water fountain. Two are talking animatedly, sparring inchoately with each other, giving and taking with fervor. One other of my tribe ponders a new Barnes & Noble with legs crossed and eyes pinched. The sun has not given up. The last, an etched sketch of imperturbability, is my sister. She is yelling at [insert person, place, thing, or common sexual disease here.] She’s yelling at Republican tater tots dipped in goose fat.

I think, shit, what are we doing here? Not confused about location. We had just finished watching a movie. Not confused about how we got there, I understand locomotion.

It was a natural progression: mall food court > Barnes & Noble > TCBY/yogurt-squirt-place > Urban Outfitters > 16-screen American Sinema.

What I really meant was, what kind of show are we putting on here? Who are we acting for? Why am I dressed like a naughty father? Why are we fishing for judgments and looks from passersby?

We think we’re in a movie.

We’d like to think we’re acting for ourselves. We: some of the smartest, logical, well-fed, well-bred group of uncynical people you’ll ever meet. We hold down fantastic jobs and do very well at them. We visit church when we go home, we hold hands with our grandparents when we go home home, and we give thought, action, and hugs to the local needy when we stay close to home.

We are by no means abnormal. But then, why are we trying to be so shocking?

Why am I wearing dark-framed glasses with a gob of cheesy Gorilla Glue smeared up the side, holding everything together? And wearing mismatched socks, inserted into shoes which sport what is either a ketchup or blood stain? And wearing a “shit-eating” grin?

Why do we swim backstroke into clubs and bars acting out like flamboyant piranhas? Toss insults into passing traffic? Threaten to punt kids, when kids and their shocked parents can hear what we’re saying?

Ride with at least one person in the trunk every weekend night? Blitz anyone who bothers to affront, or even look, at us? Break into rooms that are locked? Conveniently walk into the wrong sexed restroom?

It’s not that we’ve lost God. We found God, watching Lost.

I think it more likely that we’re – and by this “we” I mean my generation, not just my friends – are smirching the line between public and private lives. Fuck that, we’re burning the line. Lighting that line on fire with lighter fluid, cocaine, and napalms to the face.

With the prevalence of fast-action sharing, the world is at a finger-tipping point. We could point our fingertips at hipsters and blame them.  Or, we could holster those tips and embrace this chaos – this search for meaning in life. Or we could try to die faster than we already are.

Tilted Crown

One day I watch a photo float by

A book in my face

I raised my finger

To touch it

And merely sent myself sideways

And looking finally found

What it was I seeked

I shrieked

Unwound

Realized the whole time trap

Is real

Then I unreel

How could the face

Of my father

Be turning into leather

The crown my mother wore

Is tilting on top of her head

Death dare not approach

The ones I love

I will beat it back

Undo the tick

My finger knows this trick

I point

Create a reference

Anchor time to the ocean floor

And wave to the crowded room

Shuffle my papers

Clear my throat

And hope that stops the coffin

The Benefits of Improv

By my rough calculation, I’ve been “doing” improv for about six months. That’s what “they” call it, “doing.” 

And while having “done” it, I can’t point to one single specific instance or lesson that has changed my life for the better, I’d be young, dumb, and unplumb to claim it hadn’t done anything for my personal development.

In my first meeting with my new mentor at work – who is a VP in Information Technology – we spent almost the entire hour talking about how the keys to influencing originate in the same crafty grotto that improving was born in.

• Make Eye Contact – If you want someone to trust you, you’re going to have to look at them eventually.
• Pay Attention to Body Language – Smiles and attention are good, keep it up. Eating a cheesestick and turning their lower body, stop talking!
• Be a Decision Maker – Quickly consider, make a choice, and stick with it. Mistakes are easy to learn from, you’ll only get better and making choices. Again, if you want to be successful, you’re going to have to perfect this eventually.
• Pay Attention to Status – Know that asking a bunch of questions and looking around are a sign of deference. If you want to take charge, drop the question marks and make people give you what you want (even as you pay attention to their needs). 
• Play to Personality (Mirroring) – Know your own personality type, and adjustments you might make when meeting or speaking to new people. Copy their language, posture, and personality.

My VP had never done improv, but after hearing of what you must pay attention to when “doing” it, he strongly encouraged that I continue. That, and to get a haircut, shave my chest, and call a lawyer, immediately.

This morning I rolled out of my catbed and into the Volvo so I could make it to Toastmasters at 8 AM. While I’m not yet an official member of the public speaking club, I have given a few speeches and have already been adopted as the club humorist.

I have ten clean jokes, and I've already used two at Toastmasters:

1. On a Tyrannosaurs’ treasure map, Rex marks the spot.
2. FrugaliTip: If you’re looking to save money, customize your credit card with your middle school class photo. You’ll never, ever use it.

Today the roasted Toasters asked me to give a two minute speech to a hypothetical class of 5^th grade students on why I should be elected the next President. I improved the whole thing, running on the political platform that I would save America from itself by putting 5^th  graders in charge of National Insecurity, renewable Razr scooters, and making sure no child read the Left Behind series.

It seemed so easy; definitely easier than the last time I gave an improved speech, last January. Be confident, move around, smile a lot, squeak a few times, and all of a sudden two minutes is up and you hear one coworker asking another what kind of mind-altering drugs she thinks I take on a weekday morning before the sun comes up.

Onward, to the benefits of weekly improv practice:

• Toned Tweeting Muscles – http://favstar.fm/users/RecycledOrphan
• Frictionless Friends – Great people with a variety of backgrounds who love to make you laugh. They get to see you screw up, you watch them waver, and suddenly you’re on the same team. No better way to build trust than by letting someone see you act like an idiot and make mistakes.
• Better Working Memory – Talk about a short-term memory exercise; listening to and remembering what people say, act, and prefer.
• Improved Spatial Awareness – “You’re standing behind me, aren’t you?”
• Increased Work Output – When you start doing work right when it comes to you, you get more done! Multitask mastery.
• Leading Group Conversations – A juggling analogy: It’s easier to keep multiple conversations in the air at once. Note: especially if you’re wearing the skin of a clown you killed.
• Ideating/Initiating at Work – Having the confidence to voice ideas and take them from inception through the steps needed to reach completion.