Classically trained in non-classical ballroom dancinG

Life really is just a series; a killer lineup of cereal commercials all promising sugar and mother’s approval. The only difference between a Monday and a Friday is that the latter has 2% more fat and brighter lighting. Everything seems full of potential. Since days are just concepts with labels, for simplicity I just call every day a Friday and kick my socks off with a weakened state of mind.

When a friend says that corn is in everything and is the most ingrained ingredient in the gradient from Snapple to spaghetti, I tell him I could go without it for a month – and it is well understood that I will. When another asks where I derived my precise approach to invading personal space, I inform that I was classically trained in non-classical ballroom dancing. When an acquaintance asks me the dirtiest word I know, I write it in cursive. When my boss asks me what I want to be, I tell him Chief Executive Officer… and that better come with a corner office.

Zhang it! and I are studying for the GMAT and LSAT, unsure about our futures but sure that our brains could use a steady diet of punishment. A word I learned recently: perspicuity. Thought I would pass along the knowledge. Glad I could clear things up.

To thank my wrist for keeping me digitally connected all these years, I went around punching sand piles. I was hoping to find the runaway injury that had been sadly missing from my life. I finally found it in a particularly hard pile during a volleyball match, the only positive result being that xrays came back negative and the doctor told me I have “dinosaur” bones. I took this to mean that I have every excuse to snap my teeth when I am feeling hungry, so now I don’t really talk to waiters so much as I point and the menu and scissor my incisors rapidly. Of course, he might have just meant that I have hollow bones. Or a hollow soul.

I think I might get a tattoo of a snarling dog on my back and a homeless ant holding a Feed Me? sign on the web of my right hand. That way when someone pats me on the back I can look over my shoulder and scream “Don’t bite!”, and when someone shakes my hand I can warn them not to shake the hand that needs. Realistically I’ll probably just get an American flag eating an eagle holding an iPhone in his talons right over my heart.

 Nice Clothes, but don't Thread on Me

Oh! nice smooth transition, because I just got an Incredible new phone which speciates from the Android family. It was a natural selection, being that I can’t turn down an attractive, svelte, smart and hand-holdable babe that never worries about looking good in a dress. It can take pictures, but not of itself… that would be against the rules we have set up and I can’t have it advertising itself all over the internet. If you see any suspicious pics let me know: it looks like this.

I’m all moved in to my new house. I now have a pool and a dog and a ghost to take care of. A few spiders. Frogs. Wandering neighbors. Catty paperboys. And utilities.

In conclusion, synthetic cells are evil. We shouldn’t be playing God in Petri dishes - we should be playing Frisbee with our dogs with fine china dishes. We should be feeding China mission missiles, covering the country with religious pamphlets and hand-me-down oil. We should be teaching our kids to fight fair and trust clowns. Our lives are getting out of hand so we should start a breeding program for people with bigger hands. I have all the solutions, people just need to start asking better questions. It’s not that hard. That’s what ‘Sheed said.

I knew I thought I smelled you

I am getting so sick of this you spineless bastard. Yeah, that’s right you stupid invertebrate, I am going on record claiming that you were conceived out of wedlock. I’ve never had a problem with your kind before, but this has just gone too far.

I’ve given you more than one chance. Admittedly, you gave me about six months to cool off and that was quite kind of you after how things ended. I was just telling some friends last night about our encounter and how much it rattled me. If I were a cage, and you were a swift breeze or a jailed hawk, I would be rattling nonstop. That’s how deep you’ve cut.

At first you were just a bad dream; a Disconsolate Dream I mentioned to those close to me but otherwise chose to keep strapped intimately under my vest. The infectious poison of your existence was meant to be contained only in my head, and not spread from the darkness beneath your oily slithers into more natural and humane lighting.  Yes, I know you were raised in a hole in the ground and probably left to fend for yourself without parental guidance. But that is the byproduct of literally being a bastard and the topic is no longer up for debate.

You attacked me, unprovoked. I was a gentleman, enjoying an active lifestyle and good company, and I absentmindedly let the ball slip into your court. Reaching to get back what was rightfully mine, you exploded from the stacked bushels of my unconscious and into what social psychologists call my “personal space.” What you did was completely unacceptable but at least you knew your role and quickly receded to the hell from which you came. I almost blame myself more than I blame you, because a chance still stands that you are entirely of my creation; an entity of my incisive decisions.

Then, the lull. A full half year (or half full year) passed, you no doubt hibernating and planning the next public display of your sickness. Me, assuming you had been taught a lesson and dispersed of; a diluted pupil.

A huge mistake in reasoning that turned out to be. I fell enmeshed into the web you could never have spun yourself because god-forbid if you can spin webs then we are all doomed! Lying across a beautiful display of nature - showing yourself off like a sparkler on a birthday cake, seemingly winking at me with your rheumy, obsidian eyes - you waited. Weighted like the smashing end of a thrown gavel; the spinning conclusiveness of an impossible 200-year life sentence. Where you have been hidden is now of little importance. What matters now is erasing you completely from my life.

A Pollen Lifestyle

A stealthy glance back on my original goals for 2010 yielded a steady stream of mixed results. Concerning some areas: time to celebrate! In others: Focus up and fjord.

Accomplishments:

• Wrote and acted in a short film about meetings that made it to the Chief Information Officer of my company. Show off a bit of moxy and a swatch of skin and you have a viral video that not even Jesus could ignore.
• Crafted a short poem about the darkest parts of the living room, and got paid money to let an online magazine publish it in June. Published poet? Never thought it would happen, but I wrote that it would. Thus proving that the keyboard is mightier than sworn testimony.
• Lost around 15 pounds this calendar year. How? Vietnamese martial arts, power yoga, beach volleyball, basketball and the occasional sprint down the sidewalk. Not to mention an awesome ski trip to Big Sky, Montana and a preemptive stomach purge whenever I hear “Miley Cyrus.”
• After two months of searching, finally found the trigger and pulled it on an unsuspecting house. Four bedrooms, smooth doorknobs… and an in-ground, backyard pool. Bring it on summer.

Unfortunaments:

• Mungled up my back trying to kiss a short wall with my back while flying off exercise equipment. Still trying to figure out how to set things straight. Pretending that I could snowboard a week later didn’t help the situation.
• No progress with writing at length. To see why, just look at my accomplishments. Alright now look back here at this: I, Wesley King, do promise to get better at writing every day. April is script writing month, as everyone knows, and after I finish my script I plan on rubbing up against my computer screen and creating some Kinetic Fiction.

This is for my future housemates...

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.